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Concept
Industrial waste
Summary
Industrial waste is the waste produced by industrial activity which includes any material that is rendered useless during a manufacturing process such as that of factories, mills, and mining operations. Types of industrial waste include dirt and gravel, masonry and concrete, scrap metal, oil, solvents, chemicals, scrap lumber, even vegetable matter from restaurants. Industrial waste may be solid, semi-solid or liquid in form. It may be hazardous waste (some types of which are toxic) or non-hazardous waste. Industrial waste may pollute the nearby soil or adjacent water bodies, and can contaminate groundwater, lakes, streams, rivers or coastal waters. Industrial waste is often mixed into municipal waste, making accurate assessments difficult. An estimate for the US goes as high as 7.6 billion tons of industrial waste produced annually, as of 2017. Most countries have enacted legislation to deal with the problem of industrial waste, but strictness and compliance regimes vary. Enforcement is always an issue.
Hazardous waste, chemical waste, industrial solid waste and municipal solid waste are classifications of wastes used by governments in different countries. Sewage treatment plants can treat some industrial wastes, i.e. those consisting of conventional pollutants such as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). Industrial wastes containing toxic pollutants or high concentrations of other pollutants (such as ammonia) require specialized treatment systems. (See Industrial wastewater treatment).
Industrial wastes can be classified on the basis of their characteristics:
Waste in solid form, but some pollutants within are in liquid or fluid form, e.g. crockery industry or washing of minerals or coal
Waste in dissolved and the pollutant is in liquid form, e.g. the dairy industry.
Many factories and most power plants are located near bodies of water to obtain large amounts of water for manufacturing processes or for equipment cooling. In the US, electric power plants are the largest water users.
Official source
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