Avaliação ecotoxicológica de solo de um cemitério paulista cujas covas e urnas estão instaladas em um terreno com lençol freático próximo à superfície: um estudo de caso

• Autor(a) principal: Canizela, Giovanna Segati
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Trabalho de conclusão de curso
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNESP
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/11449/216465
• topic: Cemetery leachate; Phytotoxicity; Cytogenotoxicity; Mutagenicity; Necrochorume; Fitoxicidade; Citogenotoxicidade; Mutagenicidade; L. sativa; A. cepa

Cemeteries are potential sources of environmental contamination. In Brazil, although there is a specific regulation for the installations of necropolis, the number of irregular cemeteries is expressive. The contaminants in cemeteries can come from various sources, but the main one is necroslurry, a liquid more viscous than water, with a grayish-brown color, composed of water (60%), mineral salts (30%) and organic substances (10%), mainly cadaverine and putrescine. The release of this liquid compromises the quality and biological structure of the soil, as well as putting the health of the exposed population at risk. The inadequate establishment of cemeteries has consequences for the decomposition of bodies. Cemeteries installed in very humid soils, or with more superficial water tables, can present problems with cadaveric decomposition, whose buried bodies can remain, indefinitely, in the saponification stage. The São João Batista cemetery installed in the city of Leme-SP presents this situation, as part of its area has caves that remain permanently flooded by water from the water table. Taking this issue into account, this study aimed to evaluate the impact of soil contamination by necroslurry and by bodies that are in the process of permanent saponification, due to the high humidity of the ground where they are buried. For this evaluation, soil samples were collected from graves in dry and flooded areas of the aforementioned cemetery. Soil samples were taken in the vicinity of 3 graves that have different terrain conditions, with consequent decomposition problems: point 1 – burial where the corpse is immersed in water from the groundwater, which keeps the body saponified, for more than 12 years old; point 2 – grave whose body, even not being in contact with groundwater, also remains saponified for about 12 years, due to the high humidity of the ground; point 3 - grave whose corpse was buried about 10 days before collection (recent burial) in dry ground, therefore without interference from the water table humidity. The sampled soils were submitted to the contaminant extraction process, by solubilization. The solubilized ones were used in phytotoxicity, cytogenotoxicity and mutagenicity tests with the bioindicators L. sativa and A. cepa, considered efficient test organisms for studies of environmental monitoring and occupational risk analysis to which workers at the site are exposed. From the results obtained, it can be seen that all analyzed samples showed some typeof toxicity. The bioassays carried out with the sample from point 1 confirmed the presence of substances with cytotoxic and mutagenic potential, those from point 2 denoted cytotoxic and phytotoxic action of the evaluated soil and those from point 3 also showed cytotoxic action. These results confirmed the contamination potential of cemeteries and the need to monitor these environments.