WATER HYACINTH LEAVES AND FLOWERS

by

D. N. SINHA F. I. E, Ph. D, M. B. A (project management), AIII (Associate of Insurance Institute of India by Examination).

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INTRODUCTION

This particular floating plant is according to the information gathered is an attractive with bluish flowers, with a stem and horn and were found in South America. Many tourists during the 19th Century without knowing its potential collected almost from eighty countries, it appears and put them in water ponds.

Ten Such plants can accord the information, multiply to 600,000 covering an acre of water within 8 to 10 months. Hyacinth can be cultivated treating waste water and remove all the pollutants and make the water pure.

It was observed that Nitrates, Phosphates and Potassium which are common water pollutants can be absorbed by these plant leaves leaving the water pure. The Hyacinth also was found to absorb Toxic wastes, pesticides and heavy metals. Harvesting the Hyacinth will provide cleaner water.

Some scientists in India have found that aquatic weeds can remove Toxic Heavy metals and Organic wastes from polluted water. Experiments showed that weeds like Water Hyacinth could remove up to 75% of Zinc, 62% of Cadmium and Chromium, 72% of Copper and 59% of Nickel in anything around 48 hours at 100 ppm concentration. The figures mentioned could be approximate, but close to them.

On 30th MAY THE HINDU published an article, by Shri BVS BHASKAR AS “WATER HYACINTH CHOKES KONASEEMA DRAINS”. There is a mention of the name of an Environment specialist one Shri. SARMA. It is saddening to note such statements. It is a challenge for the scientists to solve such problems and not blame the plants. After the British left it is the duty of every scientist and the government to solve the obstruction problems.

The real R & D effort necessary:

Sincere scientists should come forward from the Indian Universities and other R&D Institutions and do more research on this, as India has many water ponds, almost in most of the rural areas and Industrial WATER EFFLUENTS and also such purification might even help in not letting the ponds go dry, which of course is a wishful thinking, but a sincere effort of research on this could provide us with good and useful information and thus provide the country with clean water for various purposes. It would save a lot of money for the country if the real R & D effort is made. I am only an Engineer, but Research at the appropriate stations with appropriate Technology could certainly prove useful to a country like India.

It is Imperative that a country like India struggling at every stage for oil and gas, throwing the burden on the people of the country has to do a lot of capacity building regarding various Research efforts, Scientific Developments and use of Technology. Most of the universities in India spend a lot of money in the name of research, but nothing comes out to reach or help the common man or woman and that is of practical use.

The only attempt to our knowledge, regarding the real practical use of the exuberant growth water weed viz., Hyacinth was that made by the Kolhapur Municipality in the State of Maharashtra. The Municipal authority sold of the weed to a private entrepreneur party of environmentalists, who have used very big thick and strong ropes and the iron grill nets to pull away the weed that has occupied almost an area of about three fourths of a square mile extent on the surface of the famous Rankala Lake(erstwhile lake of the Temple of Goddess Maha Lakshmi) in Kolhapur city. The party concerned dried the pulled out weed on the open fields during the summer months and later used strong mechanical crushers to chip of the leaves, stems, roots and etc portions of the Hyacinth weed mass. Later they powdered it the dried material and packed it neatly to market it away. The powder has found many an application in the form of fertilizers (compost preparations), as a fodder for buffaloes and as a raw material for the agricultural land mud mixing beds for different types of crops growth. The R & D effort of course is missing since they the entrepreneur party looked it only as a commercial market product.

Buying Technology?

But somehow, it looks as though Indian Industry, Government and all other like Institutions prefer to buy Technology to clean water from other countries, rather than to take a jump into such a research. Clean environment and removing Pollution could be only a myth in India.

Actually the weed Water Hyacinth is considered in our country as that clogs the waterways and interferes with Agriculture, forgetting its valuable ability as a pollutant filter.

The long trailing roots of the plant absorb dangerous insecticides, phenols and phosphates and many other metals as already mentioned.

BIO GAS

It appears that The NASA (The National Aeronautical and space Administration) of the USA is trying out ways and means to make practical use of this plant. It has also been shown through studies at National Space Technology laboratories in USA that Hyacinth can be decomposed or fermented to obtain ‘ BIO GAS’ A FUEL SIMILAR TO NATURAL GAS.

Feedback:

The author invites a feedback on this article for concerned R & D effort proposals to be examined and pursued for project promotion. Home plant growths on waste water in the multi-storied complex premises and buildings may be a suggestion to be examined.