A study of treated municipal waste leachate and Zeolite effects on soils

ABSTRACT- As the world's population has grown and become more urban and affluent, waste production has raised drastically. Wastewater reuse has been identified as a way to alleviate water scarcity and improve crop productivity and environmental sustainability. To address the issue, a soil column experiment was carried out in a 3 × 3 factorial randomized block design including three treatments of adsorbents (non-pretreated leachate (L1), rice husk filtered leachate (L2), activated carbon filtered leachate (L3)) and three levels of zeolite (0, 5 and 10% by soil weight).A decrease in drainage water volume through the experiment period was observed. Application of zeolite at 5% level could improve soil removal efficiency and had a positive impact on the quality of the wastewater, as indicated by changes in EC, Na+, Ca2++Mg2+, Cl- (decreased by 22%, 15%, 24%, 15% respectively) and total P (increased by 12%) for treatment of leachate. However, adding 10% zeolite did not make a significant difference (p