Spread over 140 sq km, East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW) is the kidney of Calcutta. Listed as a Ramsar site (an international convention on conserving wetlands), it is a mosaic of ponds, lakes, canals and swamps

The current study is on East Calcutta Wetland (ECW) which is a model for multi-use resource recovery system with activities like pisciculture and agriculture. The entire city's soluble waste is disposed into the raw sewage canals which finally drains into the shallow, flat bottom fish ponds called Bheri. These sewage fed fisheries act simultaneously for the purification process like removal of heavy metals, coliform reduction as well as fish production at a commercial scale.

East Calcutta Wetland (ECW) is an example of wise use of cities solid and liquid waste through integrated resource recovery, mainly for pisciculture, vegetable as well as paddy cultivation and manure production. Amaranthus caudatus, Amaranthus blithum and Spinacia oleracea grown at ECW were analyzed for their accumulation of elements using Energy Dispersive X Ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) and compared to those grown in south eastern parts of West Bengal (Midnapur).

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