QUALITATIVE EVALUATION OF ANTIBIOTICS FROM VARIOUS WATER RESOURCES IN AND AROUND PERUNGUDI DUMPSITE, CHENNAI

India, a country having a population of 1.27 billion is considered as the eleventh biggest consumer country in the world. Due to globalization, a large variety of antibiotics are entering into the Indian market and subsequently, they reach natural resources. Most of the Indian cities are located closer to natural resources and the contaminants get discharged into the environment with or without treatment. Conventional treatment methods in the wastewater treatment plant do not remove antibiotics. This necessitates a deeper analysis and study on the occurrence of antibiotics in the water resources and treatment plants in India. This study is aimed to qualitatively detect the occurrence of four common antibiotics, viz., Amoxicillin, Erythromycin, Cefixime, and Azithromycin from a wastewater treatment plant at Perungudi and some of the water resources near to the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). Samples were collected and extracted by using solid-phase extraction (SPE). Analysis of the extracted samples was done in High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) to determine the presence of the four antibiotics. Amoxicillin was detected in all the water samples. WWTP influent and effluent showed the presence of Amoxicillin, which indicates that the treatment methods in the plant do not fully remove this contaminant. Cefixime which was detected only in WWTP influent, indicating that it is completely removed in the treatment plant. Erythromycin, Azithromycin, and Amoxicillin were detected in municipality water, which shows that surface washings from the landfill site are reaching the water resources and the water treatment methods do not fully remove these contaminants.