ABSTRACT

The role of heavy and trace elements in the soil system is increasingly becoming an issue of global concern at private as well as governmental levels, especially as soil constitutes a crucial component of rural and urban environments. Heavy metals are natural components of the earth's crust. They are stable and persistent in environmental pollutions and contaminations. Toxic metals are known to have serious health implications, including carcinogenesis induced tumour promotion. Heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, mercury and cadmium can have adverse effects on human and animal health if allowed to accumulate in the food chain. Garri, processed from cassava, is rich in carbohydrate and therefore, suitable for fungal growth. Several reports have revealed high occurrence of heavy metals associated with the processing of cassava to garri products. The SPSS version 17 method was used to assess the heavy metals present in the 5g of garri sample produced from Umudike, in Umuahia, Abia State. The data produced were analysed by one way ANOVA (Tukey) using SPSS ver. 17 and reported as mean + Standard Deviation. Significance differences were accepted at 95% confidence level of probability. From the result obtained, arsenic has an obtained value of 0.47 ± 0.00 with a WHO recommended value of 0.3mg, cadmium has an obtained value was 0.42 ± 0.00 with a WHO recommended value of 0.1mg. The obtained value of the lead is 0.59 ± 0.01 with a WHO recommended value which is 0.1mg and mercury with an obtained value of 0.32 ± 0.00, and a WHO recommendation of 0.1mg. This indicated that the garri processed in Umudike has a high concentration level of heavy metals than the WHO recommended value and this means that the presence of this metals in the processed garri is very significant, has a negative effect and also • toxic and could be as a result of the soil composition of the farm land where the cassava were harvested and the procedure involved in processing the cassava to garri. Therefore it is advisable that safety measures should incorporated into the process to reduce the chances of heavy metals inflowing into the cassava or garri as the case maybe.