Characterization of Ureolytic Bacteria from Nitrogenous Waste Dumps in Port Harcourt Nigeria

Three nitrogenous dump-sites viz. urinary spots; poultry dung compost and nitrogenous fertilizer storage site; and a non-nitrogenous site (as control) in Port Harcourt Metropolis; Rivers State of Nigeria; were characterised for their aerobic ureolytic bacteria isolates. The nitrogenous waste sites compared with the non-nitrogenous site clearly indicated that the TCFU of bacteria was significantly lowered as a result of dumping of all forms of nitrogenous wastes (ANOVA P = 0.019). Tentatively and cumulatively identified 10 randomly isolated aerobic bacterial species from the sites included Staphylococcus 5(12.5)*; Streptococcus 2(5.0); Proteus 8(20.0); Serratia 2(5.0); Flavobacterium /Xanthomonas 3(7.5); Escherichia coli 4(10.0); Klebsiella /Enterobacter 2(5.0) and Pseudomonas 4(10.0); Bacillus and other Gram-positive rods 10(25.0) were frequently isolated in all the samples. From these isolates; urease activity was more elaborated in the nitrogenous fertilizer dump-site in which three isolates of Proteus sp and three of Pseudomonas sp elaborated urease activity. While urease activity was also elaborated by Proteus (2 isolates) and the Klebsiella /Enterobacter (one isolate) in the urinary spot only (2 isolates) of Proteus elaborated urease activity in the poultry-dung site. It was not clear if there were physiological factors arising from human urine and poultry dung that might have limited the activity Pseudomonas sp to the nitrogenous fertilizer only. The probable source of variability in the type of urea degrading bacterial isolated from the sites and the effect of compromising microbiological environmental cleansing capability were discussed

Microbiological Assessment of Opened Soft Drink Bottles for Pathogenic Bacteria Associated with Drinking Directly from the Orifice

Four types of carbonated soft drinks encoded as A; B; C and D; and bottled and sealed water E (used as control) were bought from a student restaurant in the Rivers State University of Science and Technology; Port Harcourt Nigeria. The area of the orifice and neck of the bottles usually placed in the mouth while drinking directly from the bottles was analyzed in triplicates for the impinging bacterial species. Of the eighty-three morphologically identified aerobic isolates the percent frequency of occurrence was: Staphylococcus aureus (38.4); Bacillus and other gram-positive rods (36.0); Enterococcus sp (12.0); Micrococcus spp (8.4each); and Proteus and Pseudomonas spp (2.4each). The Standard Plate Count expressed as the Colony Forming Units (CFU) indicated a range of 5.3 x 10 3 to 2.6.0 x 10 4 CFU ml-1 of the rinsate of the orifice and neck of the soft-drink bottles. The preponderance of the indicator organisms: Coagulase positive S. aureus and the Enterococci sp is used to infer the presence of potentially pathogenic bacteria. The need for public health enlightenment on the packaging and safe conduits for the distribution of soft drinks was discussed