© 2007 IWA Publishing. Organic Waste Recycling: Technology and Management. Authored by
Chongrak Polprasert. ISBN: 9781843391210. Published by IWA Publishing, London, UK.
7 Aquatic weeds and their utilization
Aquatic weeds are prolific plants growing in water bodies, which can create a
number of problems due to their extensive growth and with high productivity.
Since they exhibit spontaneous growth, they usually infest polluted waterways
or water bodies, reducing the potential uses of these watercourses. The problems
of aquatic weeds have been magnified in recent decades due to human's
intensive uses of the natural water bodies and pollution discharges into these
water bodies. Eradication of the aquatic weeds has proved impossible and even
reasonable control is difficult. However, turning these aquatic weeds into
productive uses such as in wastewater treatment, in making compost fertilizer,
and as human food or animal feed, etc., some of the problems created by aquatic
weeds may be minimized and yielding some incentives for the people to harvest
the aquatic weeds more regularly.