Assessment of Asa River: Impact of Waste Discharge from soft drink plant into Asa River, Ilorin. Nigeria

Some physical and chemical analysis was carried out on samples collected at various distances from the effluent discharge from a soft drink plant in Ilorin into Asa River. The pH was found to range between 7.2 – 7.8 with a mean temperature of 25.25°C. Experimental results obtained on replicate samples showed that the standard deviation was generally below 10%. The total organic matter ranged between 21 – 22.9% while the nitrate concentration ranged between 5.81 – 15.41 mg/l; these were high and could lead to eutrophication of the water body into which it empties. The cation and anion concentrations all fall within safe limits except for zinc and in some cases, NO3 - concentrations which was higher than the standard set by regulatory bodies. A Pearson s correlation study showed correlations between different parameters at both 1 % and 5 % probability levels.