Water Hyacinth is an ...
Published by Mausumi Raychaudhuri, Principal Scientist at ICAR - Indian Institute of Water Management, Bhubaneswar, India.
Water Hyacinth is an accumulator heavy metals especially chromium and help in treating contaminated water through phytoremediation. If the river is fed with sewage water or industrial effluent then certainly water hyacinth will carry a good amount of heavy metals and thus not recommended for composting. Composting will concentrate the nutrient concentration and when used for edible food production it will contaminate the soil and heavy metals enter the food chain. The sewage water and agricultural runoff contains good amount of N and P that supports the growth. Hence only option left is identifying the source of N and P and controlling or diverting the channel. Water hyacinth is definitely treating the water and accumulating heavy metals but of no use for agriculture. Please check the Cd, Cr, Pb and Ni concentration in water hyacinth before composting.