International Journal of Applied Environmental Sciences ISSN 0973-6077 Volume 5, Number 5 (2010), pp. 741–748 © Research India Publications http://www.ripublication.com/ijaes.htm Characterization of Leachate Quality of Distillery Waste: An Experimental Approach Farid Ansari* 1 , Ajay K. Awasthi 2 , P. Kumar 3 and Neelam Mishra 4 1,2 School of Environmental Biology, A.P.S. University, Rewa, M.P., India 3 Department of Environmental Science, Post Graduate College, Ghazipur, U.P. 233001, India 4 Department of Botany, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, U.P. 211001, India *Corresponding Author E-mail: ansarisir07@gmail.com Abstract Distillery effluent is posing threat to the different component of the environment, mainly affecting soil and water characteristics as the chemicals leaches to the ground water table. The organic materials are mobile in the ground water and constitute a major off site pollution hazard. Large volumes of effluent are often discharged on small areas of land, which aggravates leaching. The effluents contain undesirable elements which create many serious changes in soil, water and physiological disorder in plants, human beings and animals. The result showed that effluent even if it is partially treated have high values of different physicochemical parameters. Partially treated distillery effluent when passed through lysimeter (fill up of different soil layers), various chemical constituents are initially absorbed by the soil layers but the values further increased with time due to limited soil capabilities. From these observations it may be concluded that the soil has capacity to absorb / adsorb the pollutants but their continsuous application may reduce the absorbing / adsorbing capacity of soil. The physical (sand, silt, clay etc.) and chemical characteristics (colloids elements, electrolytes etc.) of soil till saturation appear to be effective in ‘filtering out’ and ‘reacting with’ to improve the leachate composition and subsequently on saturation soil become ineffective and toxicant may easily reach to the ground water. Which indicate that the leachate containing undesirable materials may reach to the ground water easily which is major source of drinking water in India. Keywords: Lysimeter, leachate, distillery effluent, physicochemical characteristics.