Laundry wastewater characteristics and their relationship with river water quality as an indicator of water pollution. Case study: Code Watershed, Yogyakarta

¹ Master Program on Planning and Management of Coastal Areas and Watersheds, Faculty of Geography, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Special Region of Yogyakarta 55281, Indonesia
² Department of Environmental Geography, Faculty of Geography, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Special Region of Yogyakarta 55281, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: m.widyastuti@geo.ugm.ac.id

Abstract

Laundry services are rapidly becoming ubiquitous in rural and urban areas, generating high domestic waste volumes. Their growth has raised concerns about the quality of natural waters, particularly the rivers into which most laundry businesses discharge their wastewater. The research set out to study laundry wastewater characteristics and their relationship with the river water quality as water pollution indicators in Code Watershed (Indonesia). It lies in three administrative units where many human activities take place in the watershed’s upper to the lower reaches. BOD and COD of 25 sampled laundry businesses were analyzed descriptively and compared to the laundry wastewater standards stipulated in Regulation No. 7 of 2016 and the class II water quality standards issued in Governor Regulation No. 20 of 2008. The results showed that the BOD of four laundry businesses and the COD of 18 laundry businesses exceeded the predetermined standards. Overall, rivers in Code Watershed meet the class II river water criteria for BOD at three of the seven sampling points and COD at all points.