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Food and nutrition security are essential for accomplishing sustainable development goals, and a growing population requires various food sources to address hunger and nutrition. Indigenous vegetables are nutritious, healthy, and adaptable to local conditions, making them a potential food and nutrition security resource. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the nutritional richness of indigenous vegetables by comparing the nutritional content of commonly grown indigenous vegetables like Chenopodium album (Bathua), Coccinia grandis (Telakucha), Amaranthus viridis (Shaknotey), Moringa oleifera (Shojne), Alternanthera philoxeroides (Malancha), and Xanthium strumarium (Ghagra) to BARI Lalshak-1 (Amaranthus tricolor). Shojne violet had the highest lightness (L*), directions (b*), and chroma (c*) of 43.50, 23.69, and 25.02, respectively and telakucha had the highest luminosity (h°) of 114.11. Shaknotey had more moisture (88.97 %) than bathua green (66.62 %) or ghagra (72.55 %). Ghagra had the most chlorophyll a (1.11 mg/g), b (0.65 mg/g), total chlorophyll (2.04 mg/g), ascorbic acid (22.0 mg/100 g), and flavonoids (50.1 mgQE/100 g). Bathua red had significant levels of anthocyanin, carotenoids, and strongest antioxidant activity (IC50 value): 42.9 µg/g, 0.24 mg/g, and 12.4 µg/mL, respectively. Shojne green and telakucha were found rich in phenolic content (136.0 mgGAE/100 g) and β-carotene (2.05 mg/100 g), respectively. Moreover, the studied indigenous vegetables were rich in minerals, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and iron, with a very high K content (49.4-79.4 mg/g). Correlation matrix and PCA showed that ghagra, shojne, and bathua species were nutritionally superior to others. Therefore, the current findings suggest that ghara, shojne and bathua can become a nutrient-rich indigenous vegetable and improve human nutrition., Competing Interests: Declarations Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Compliance with ethical standards A variety of indigenous vegetables were utilized as plant specimens in the current investigation. The seeds of the vegetables under study were obtained from the Horticulture Department of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, located in Gazipur-1706, Bangladesh. The seeds are being cultivated and conserved in the Horticulture department for utilization in research endeavors. The vegetables were cultivated in the vegetable research field of the same department, adhering to conventional cultivation processes and complying with the appropriate standards and regulations for plant management. Furthermore, it is important to note that this article lacks any research involving human subjects or animals conducted by any of the authors. Furthermore, the authors assert that they do not have any conflict of interest. Clinical trial number This article does not involve any research regarding the clinical trial in human being or animals therefore there is no clinical trial number has been included in this manuscript., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The textile wet processing industry is considered a notorious polluter due to its widespread use of natural resources without proper replenishment. Bangladesh is one of the largest producers of textile products in the World, and therefore, it is vulnerable to environmental degradation. Bangladesh is predominantly a cotton processing country; therefore, reactive dyes are commonly used, and the dye combination is very water and chemical-intensive. There is a scarcity of information on the consumption of water, textile dyes and the generation of wastewater in the textile sector. Thus, this study aimed to estimate the amount of water use, wastewater generation, and chemical use in textile wet processing units. Therefore, a faceto- face in-depth questionnaire-based survey was conducted in 18 textile wet processing factories, including knit composite, knit dyeing, yarn dyeing, denim dyeing, and knit and yarn dyeing. The average specific groundwater consumption to process 1 Kg of textile materials was 164 L/Kg (SD ~ 81.8); dyehouse water was136 L/Kg (SD ~ 70.6), while corresponding wastewater was 119 L/Kg (SD ~ 73.0). This high consumption of groundwater is directly linked to the depletion of groundwater in the region, where textile industries are situated and also, causes water pollution through wastewater generation. The water used in the dyehouse water was usually soft water and found to be in a range of 68% to 100% that of groundwater extracted. For chemical use, a factory used 449 g of chemicals to process 1 Kg of textile materials, in which the most widely used chemicals were inorganic and basic chemical in nature. However, the chemical use varied from 152 g/Kg to 705 g/Kg of textile production. The total chemical consumption ranged from 954 tons to 4,525 tons a year. More than 50% of the wastewater treatment plants were biological, a quarter of combination and physico- chemical and biological, and the rest were chemical treatment plants in this study. Even though this study may not represent the whole textile wet processing industry of Bangladesh, however, This study provides baseline information on water and chemical consumption and wastewater generation. Our findings would be helpful for policy makers and researchers to identify transformative challenges required at the national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Textile is one of the biggest industries and it has an enormous impact on the global economy. However, the textile industry is labelled as the most polluting of all the industries and this is due to its contaminated wastewater. Textile wastewater contains organic hazardous compounds like alkylphenols (APs) such as nonylphenols (NPs), and alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEOs) for example nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEOs), which may come from various detergents, wetting agents, emulsifying agents, etc. used in textile industries. Literature review revealed that no work was reported on the APs and APEOs in the textile wastewater of Bangladesh. This study reports the status of some APs and some APEOs after assessing wastewater of some textile industries in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Investigations were carried out with the wastewater of seven textile industries located in the Dhaka Division, Bangladesh. Tests were carried out by an Agilent Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometer (LC-MS). The results revealed that none of the wastewater samples contained APs, and APEOs other than nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEOs) a form of APEOs. And it might have released from the textile products treating stuff through dissolution process. Among all the seven industries, two industries (28%) contained nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEOs). The mean concentrations of the detected NPEOs were determined as 11.27 ± 0.24 µg L-1 and 14.01 ± 0.09 µg L-1 in the wastewater of the mentioned two industries. The levels of the observed concentrations of NPEOs were much higher than the specified limits for textile wastewater. Findings of the present work will create pressure on the textile industries of home and abroad for treating textile wastewater effectively and not letting APEOs cum NPEOs in the wastewater. And such activities all over will pave the way to save the ecological system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban rivers in Asian developing countries are becoming increasingly polluted due to industrialization and lacking treatment of wastewater. We investigated toxicity and likely sources of pollutants for the urban Shitalakshaya River, Bangladesh. Physiochemical variables and heavy metals were examined in water and sediment of an urban river section in Narayanganj City. The spatial distribution of quality indices and cluster groups indicates that the river's downstream urban-affected areas are the most contaminated. Water and sediment quality guidelines indicate that COD, TSS, Fe, Pb, Zn in water, and Pb, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, and particularly Pb and Cu in sediment, pose a serious threat to the aquatic ecosystem and human health in the area. Correlation, principal component (PCA), and cluster analysis (CA) indicate that the sources of Mn and Cd are geogenic, COD, TSS, Pb, Zn, Cu anthropogenic, and Fe, Ni, Co both geogenic and anthropogenic. The main anthropogenic pollution sources of the study area are municipal and industrial wastewater, boat and car traffic, runoff from agricultural areas, and stormwater runoff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microplastics (MPs), together with microfibers, have emerged as a contaminant of concern all around the globe. MPs have been detected in freshwater, seawater, sediment, and aquatic species among others. As suggested by several recent investigations, sea salts, a daily intake item by humans, are also contaminated by MPs. The current article describes MPs' occurrence, distribution, type, and timeline variation in raw sea salts from Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. MPs have been detected in every collected salt sample, and quantity varied from 28.53 ± 2.43 to 93.53 ± 4.21 particles per kg, which was about 52.48 ± 1.72 to 67.46 ± 3.81 µg/kg of raw salt. Microfibers were MPs' dominant shape category, and the plastic types were mainly polyester or nylon. Other types of MPs were polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polycarbonate (PC), polyurethane (PU), and polystyrene (PS) in decreasing amounts. The majority of the MPs in the sea salts were in the size range of ˂ 3–1 mm. The total amount of MPs and plastic-type variation due to sampling location (p ˃ 0.05) and because of the time period (p ˃ 0.05) was found insignificant. Acetaldehyde, a volatile toxic substance produced by the degradation of polyester polymer chains, was detected in MPs in the range of 0.37 to 1.72 µg/g by headspace GC–MS analysis. Hence, the sea salts contaminated with MPs pose a public health hazard. Microplastics extraction from sea salts and their characterization [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. The river Buriganga, one of the major dumping zones of industrial wastes in Bangladesh, is responsible for contaminating the drinking water sources along its length. This study aimed to assess the water quality from these sources by monitoring the changes in hematological, biochemical, and histological parameters caused in healthy rats due to their consumption. Methods. Using ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) as an anticoagulant agent, hematological and biochemical analyses of Sprague–Dawley rat models were executed in this study. Following blood sampling, the rats were sacrificed, and the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, and spleen were separated to carry out the histological analysis. Later, to perform the statistical analysis, SPSS, V.25.0 was utilized. Results. A significant rise (p < 0.02) in body weight was recorded due to increased protein synthesis, inflammations; increased lymphocyte, white blood cell (WBC), and neutrophil count but hemoglobin (20.0 ± 1.39 g/dL vs. 15.25 ± 0.36 g/dL; p) and red blood cell (RBC) count ((6.24 ± 0.45) × 106/µL vs. (5.47 ± 0.34) × 106/µL)) decreased due to infections and hematopoietic stem cell poisoning by pathogens in water samples. Elevated (p < 0.01) serum urea, creatinine, alanine, and aspartate aminotransferase levels indicated kidney malfunction and hepatic tissue necrosis. Histological analysis revealed gross lesions, internal hemorrhages in the brain; inflammations, granulomas, migrating macrophages in the spleen; fibrosis (resulting in hypo-perfusion), and collagen formation in cardiac muscles. Conclusions. The findings in this study provide comprehensive evidence, based on in vivo analysis, that the water bodies around the Buriganga river are likely to be contaminated with toxic chemicals and microbial entities making them unfit for human consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The textile industries in Bangladesh are establishing remarkable opportunities for the financial growth of Bangladesh but the rapid and unplanned expansion of small-scale textile industries in residential areas has resulted in alarming environmental concerns. To examine the current pollution scenario in Dhaka City, Bangladesh generated from small-scale textile industries in residential areas, a study was conducted in Dhaka North City Corporation, particularly in Mirpur Sect. 7 and the Mirpur Shialbari area. Wastewater samples were collected from eight textile wet processing industries to assess the physio-chemical parameters of the samples. The investigation discovered that just two companies' wastewater samples (Industry 1 and 3) met the national standard set by the Department of Environment (DoE), Bangladesh as only these two sectors have Effluent Treatment Plants (ETPs) while the wastewater quality in the other industries (Industry 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8) was unsatisfactory, indicating serious violations of the law. The results of the study will aid government policymakers in developing serious implementation strategies to prevent the discharge of untreated wastewater from small-scale companies in residential areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phytoremediation is an acceptable, economical, and eco-friendly way to remediate the metal contaminated soils beside the industrial zone. Like other industries, the textile industries generate the effluent containing several types of pollutants such as metal conjugated dyes, several inorganic and organic substances, etc. When discharged to the environment, metals - specifically heavy metals - exert an adverse impact on soil and other biotas through the food chain. In this study, Bryophyllum pinnatum was used for phytoremediation in the contaminated soil sample collected from the area located around textile industries in Kaliakair, Bangladesh. The experiment was carried out by ex-situ in earthen pots. The concentration of six heavy metals including Zn, Cu, Ni, Cr, Pb, and Cd was analyzed before applying phytoremediation. Two heavy metals, Cu (28.57 µg/g) and Zn (143.88 µg/g) were found and others were not detected in that soil. After planting of Bryophyllum pinnatum, the concentrations of Cu and Zn in the contaminated soil were analyzed at three intervals of 45 days (S3), 90 days (S4), and 135 days (S5) in three replications. The experiment revealed that there was a decline in the concentration of Cu in soil (27.08 µg/g for 45 days and 13.19 µg/g for 90 days) except for the 3rd replication of 135 days (S5). However, the concentration of Zn (mean 103.09 µg/g) in soil was measured at 45 days and then remained within nearer values of concentration for other replications. The amounts of heavy metals uptake for both Cu and Zn by plants can be presented as leaves> stem >root which indicated that heavy metals were transferred from root to shoot over time. Bryophyllum pinnatum can, therefore, be considered as a good hyperaccumulator plant having BCF>1 and TF>1 values as well as possessing a better capacity of phytoextraction of metals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]