THE IMPACT OF PALM OIL MILL EFFLUENT TREATMENT USING LAND APPLICATION

Increasing the area of oil palm plantations has been able to increase the quantity of crude palm oil and palm kernel oil production and place Indonesia as the country with the largest land area of oil palm plantations in the world. But on the other hand, the quantity of palm oil mill effluent (POME) produced from the processing of fresh fruit bunches at POME also increased. This makes the risk of environmental pollution that can be caused by POME waste will increase if POME waste is not handled properly and optimally. The weight of POME waste that must be disposed of into the environment as a receiving body will increase. POME waste consists of solid waste, wastewater and gas waste. Besides wastewater, other wastes have generally been handled in the POME area before being discharged into the environment. Therefore, this focus on wastewater must be treated before being discharged into the environment because of the high content of organic material in it which has the potential to pollute the environment. Generally, treated wastewater is used for irrigation water and enhancing soil nutrition on plantation land. This paper discusses the impact of processing using a land application, so that the implementation can minimize it