Discharge of large amount of wastewater as effluent from pulp and paper industries in the surrounding streams result
in serious health and environmental problems. These large quantities of effluents need to be treated after characterization prior
to their disposal. Physicochemical characteristics of effluents from an agro-based paper mills located in Uttar Pradesh state of
India were analyzed in terms of pH, colour, TS, TDS, TSS, turbidity, BOD, COD and AOX. The results found markedly higher
values of all physicochemical parameters of effluents from various processing units of the paper mill than the permissible limit
thus necessitating appropriate treatment prior to their discharge in the environment. In the present paper several types of
coagulant viz. Ferric chloride, lime, alum and Ferric chloride with poly acryl amide(PAM) have been examined for their
effectiveness of reducing chemical load of the effluent.
