A scientific study on earthenware pottery waste and its potential use

The pottery industry is one of the major industries which generate employment for the people in rural and urban areas. There are thousands of pottery units scattered all over India and the yearly production of pottery products from one unit is slated to be around ₹ 85 crores. However, during the course of production and transportation, a huge amount of pottery items get damaged or broken. It imparts negative effects on the environment as the baked clay products are non-biodegradable. Thus, an attempt has been made to characterize the various Physico-chemical properties and micro/macro nutrient levels in earthenware pottery waste (EPW). So that it could be used as wealth from waste for soil quality improvement. The bulk density of EPW is in the range of 51.20 to 60.63%, pH 7.5 to 9, electrical conductivity 212.70 to 239.90 µs/ppm. From the analysis, it was found that the level of micro and macro nutrients is low to medium except for iron content which is in the medium range in EPW collected from different districts. EPW contains most of the micro and macro nutrients and has significant bulk density. Thus, it may be assumed that EPW will help to improve the soil quality by enhancing the nutrients.