WATER HYACINTH: AVAILABLE AND RENEWABLE RESOURCE

Recently, attention is being devoted to the utilization of water hyacinth since the efforts to control plant growth by chemical; biological and mechanical means have met with little success. The real challenge is not how to get rid of this weeds but how to benefit from it and turn it into a crop. Thus the issue of water hyacinth should be looked from a different view. In this article the potential uses of water hyacinth are classified and discussed.Data indicated that the application of water hyacinth co-compost as soil amendments especially to the sandy soils, can improve some soil hydro-physical and chemical parameters and supplies the growing crops with several nutrients. On the other hand, if the composted water hyacinth was collected from a clean water bodies the levels of heavy metals would be lower than other common organic fertilizers in the market.Water hyacinth removed various pollutants through the absorption and uptake of toxic organic matter and heavy metals. Water hyacinth has drawn attention as a plant of rapid growth and high biomass production, and capable of removing pollutants from domestic and industrial waste effluents. Reduction of heavy metals in situ by plants may be a useful detoxification mechanism for phytoremediation. Therefore, water hyacinth could be employed for biological treatment of contaminated water. Water hyacinth rhizomes and roots could help in the removal of heavy metals from the aquatic habitat or constructed wet-land. Therefore, it is undesirable to involve contaminated rhizomes and roots in fodder or co-compost organic fertilizer. From these results the contaminated water hyacinth may be dry ashed and heavy metals could be extracted and recycled.