Effects of Abattoir Activities in the Surrounding Soils within Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

Mercy Uwem Useh*, Danlami Uzama  and Patrick Obigwa

The various activities taking place in abattoirs all over the world today can contaminate the environment through direct or indirect impacts. This study aims to investigate the impact of abattoir wastes on the environment. Soil samples from proximity to five selected abattoirs (Kubwa, Dei-Dei, Dutse Alhaji, Gwarimpa, Mpape) in Abuja were examined to ascertained the level of contamination in terms of the physicochemical properties and heavy metal contents of the soil. The results revealed that all the studied soils are acidic (5.2±0.0 - 5.9±0.1)  Most physicochemical properties, including conductivity (18.9±0.2 µs/cm to 27.4±0.6 µs/cm), bulk density (1.4±0.0 gcm^-3 to 1.9±0.0 gcm^-3), salinity (15.3±0.0 mgkg^-1 to 20.0±0.0 mgkg^-1), organic matter (7.9±0.0 % and11.4±0.0 %), cation exchange capacity (57.3±0.1 cmol/kg to 76.4±0.3 cmol/kg) were observed to be higher in the studied abattoir soils than in the control (15.4±0.0 µs/cm), (1.3±0.2 gcm^-3), (11.5±0.0 mgkg^-1), (5.2±0.1 %), (34.6±0.1 cmol/kg) respectively. All the studied heavy metal ions (Ni, Fe, Cu, Zn, Cr, Pb and Cd) were higher in the abattoir soils than in the control site except that Fe was equally higher in the control and all were above the FEPA (1999) recommended. Some geochemical assessment techniques including Contamination factor (CF), Enrichment factor (EF), Geoaccumulation index (Igeo), Degree of contamination (Cdeg) and Pollution load index (PLI) as computed showed that all the abattoir soils studied were very highly contaminated (32 < Cdeg)  with the studied metals (Cu²⁺ >Zn2+ >Ni²⁺ >Cd²⁺ >Pb²⁺ >Cr³⁺ >Fe²⁺) in that order with Cu being the most abundant metal.