In India many idols are made from Plaster of Paris for worship and then released in water. This leads to contamination of water as the number of idols is very high and of various weight and size. I wanted to know about the adverse effects of PoP on aquatic biota.
Plaster of Paris is powdered anhydrite (calcium sulfate, CaSO4). It is made from removing water from gypsum by heating. You should be able to look up the effects of calcium and sulfate separately. Calcium causes increased hardness in water while high sulfate in drinking water can have a laxative effect. You might see additional problems with odor and acidity if you have sulfate-reducing conditions resulting in hydrogen sulfide and sulfurous/sulfuric acid, respectively, in water.
Kindly see the below mentioned reference. It is in an open access journal.
N.P.Shukla, P.S.Bundela, S.K.Khare, S. Sarsaiya, (2014) Study of the impact of plaster of paris and clay idol immersion in water. International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Technology, 3(7): 861-864.
Basically POP is referred as non-hazardous material. It is an industrial matter used in construction, decoration, glass making, tanning, making of bleaching powder, medical field (orthopedic, dentistry for cast making), to purify sugar and study of fossils.There are practically no specific guide lines for its disposal, (non-hazardous). Chemically it is calcium sulphate having water of crystallization, when water is added it hardens; this feature make it a good material for idol making and to investigate the fossils. Further, it is very difficult to remove POP for the matter to which it has been added. Thus one may feel POP with no additions is nearly non hazardous (some time asbestos and silica are added for specific purpose). About its plausible adverse effects in a biosystem. 1- it can cause irritation to the respiratory system due to inhaled dust of POP, cough, strained breathing, and/or irritation to skin if not cleaned immediately can bloc the sweat pore. 2- POP dust can easily settle on the epithelial layer of respiratory system, intestine (alimentary canal of small animals (if swallowed). Since it is practically insoluble in water (0.3%) it may not be dissolving in body fluid. 3- There is possibility that its particles are being engulfed by macrophages or other activated freely moving cells (endocytosis), 4- may affect the movements of cilia of respiratory system and/or villi of intestine. 5-POP in abiotic component- POP particles being least soluble in water and being very small in size (fine powder) are likely to remain suspended in water bodies for some times (if released/discarded in water body). Thereby increasing the turbidity and decreasing the visibility for aquatic animals and reducing the penetration of sun light in the water body causing some disturbance to flora and fauna of the aquatic ecosystem. 6- When POP particles get settled at he bottom of the water body or discarded in solution form after its use on the open land, it get settled at the bed of water body or in the surface of soil. In both the cases it being very fine in size is capable of reducing porosity or capillarity of the substratum, this can disturb the micro flora and fauna of the site. Further 7- it can be envisaged that the texture of the soil may be affected due to mixing of fine sized particle of POP, loam nature, clay nature or sandy nature. Where ever idols are released in water body their substrata are quite slippery. 8-Since POP is not very soluble in water its Calcium ion may not be available to biosystems living there in.
Over all one may find that POP is a potential agent to cause disturbance in the ecosystem though in relatively smaller scale but its disposal needs caution.
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