Quality Assessment of Waste Waters Generated by some Important Hospitals from Cluj County Ocsana OPRIŞ 1 , Carmen ROBA 2* , Florina COPACIU 3 , Andrea BUNEA 3 1 National Institute for Research and Development of Isotopic and Molecular Technologies, 67-103 Donat, Cluj-Napoca 400293, Romania 2 Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering, 30 Fântânele, 400294 Cluj-Napoca, Romania 3 Faculty of Animal Science and Biotechnologies, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, 3-5 Mănăştur, Cluj-Napoca 400372, Romania *corresponding author, e-mail: carmen.roba@ubbcluj.ro Bulletin UASVM series Agriculture 73(1)/2016 Print ISSN 1843-5246; Electronic ISSN 1843-5386 DOI 10.15835/buasvmcn-agr: 12016 ABSTRACT Hospitals produce large quantities of waste water that may contain various potentially hazardous materials. Moreover, these effluents usually do not undergo any specific treatment before being discharged into the urban sewage networks. As a consequence, a proper management of the hospitals effluents is vital. In the present study, the quality of the effluents, generated by 11 important hospitals from Cluj County was investigated. The analyzed parameters were: pH, chemical and biochemical oxygen demand, total suspended solids, residual free chlorine, and detergents. For all the effluents, the biochemical oxygen demand and the detergents content were within the permissible limits for waste water discharged in the urban sewerage system, while the other parameters exceeded the permissible limits. Keywords: hospital effluent, waste water, water quality, physicochemical parameter INTRODUCTION During the last decades, the production and the consumption of pharmaceuticals have increased rapidly due to the development of medical science. Approximately 3000 compounds are used as medicine, and the annual production amount exceeds hundreds of tons (Kümmerer, 2009; Sim et al., 2011). Hospitals use a variety of chemical substances such as pharmaceuticals, radionuclides, solvents and disinfectants for medical purposes as diagnostics, disinfections and research (Sim et al., 2011). They are the main source of pharmaceutical compounds (PhCs) released into the environment. Hospitals are important water consumers too. Generally, the hospitals water demand varies from 400 to 1200 l/bed/day, with a minimal domestic water consumption of 100 l/person/day (Emmanuel et al., 2005). In the developing countries the hospital average water consumption is estimated at 500 l/bed/day, while in the developed countries this value can be double, for example in the USA reaches 968 l/bed/day (Emmanuel et al., 2005). As a consequence, hospitals generate significant volumes of waste water which end into the municipal sewerage network or surface water. Sometimes the hospital effluents are discharged without a preliminary treatment, releasing many toxic substances into the aquatic environment (Emmanuel et al., 2005). These waste waters can have potential negative effects on biological balance of natural environments, because of brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk