The food industry consumes large amounts of water although there is an increasing demand for water and a rapid decrease in the level of natural water resources. Wastewater resulting from food industries needs to be assessed for their compliance to standards. In this study, wastewater treatment steps from the food industry were investigated for accurate assessment of wastewater loading by analyzing parameters of the concentration of compounds present in the effluents. The results revealed that the parameters of treated wastewater were as follow, electrical conductivity 2931 μs/cm, total suspended solids 100 mg/L, biochemical oxygen demand 90 mg/L, chemical oxygen demand 250 mg/L, total phosphorus 7.9 mg/L, and total nitrogen 70 mg/L. This exerts a huge load on the biological treatment unit. Thus, this study offers an understanding and support in selecting appropriate treatment for industrial wastewater to obtain an effluent suitable in compliance with standards of the environmental quality.

Herbicides used on a regular basis could endanger non-target species like earthworms. The aim of this work was to test the toxic effect of atrazine and metribuzin on Aporrectodea caliginosa by filter paper contact and soil mixing techniques. Atrazine had the highest intrinsic toxicity to earthworms, with LC50 of 0.026 µg mL-1 after 72 hr of treatment. While the LC50 of metribuzin was 0.063 µg mL-1 after 72 hr by filter paper contact test. LC50 was reduced from 11.121 to 3.118 and 164.824 to 19.113 μg g soil-1 in clay soil, from 32.221 to 17.33 and 324.141 to 41.028 μg g soil-1 in soil (1:1) and from 41.234 to 30.804 and 462.255 to 70.902 μg g soil-1 in sandy clay loam soil of atrazine and metribuzin after 5 and 10 day. Generally, atrazine is more toxic than metribuzin in both tests.

In developing countries, it still suffers from endless problems regarding wastewater treatment and the problem of choosing the appropriate treatment system due to lack of proper technology and weak economy. This study highlights the maturity oxidation pond (stabilization) of small communities as an effective, low-cost and simple post-treatment technique for treating wastewater before discharging into an aquatic ecosystem. The Rashid plant was cited as a treatment plant in the city of Rashid-ElBeheira Governorate - Egypt as a model plant for applying this technology in treatment of wastewater. This work also includes the studying of the relationship between climatic conditions, physicochemical parameters and biomass of microorganisms to evaluate the efficiency of its performance.