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.

About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related courses (24)
ENV-501: Material flow analysis and resource management
This course provides the basis to understand material and energy production and consumption processes. Students learn how to develop a material flow analysis and apply it to resource management cases.
ENV-304: Treatment and valorization of water and waste
Les systèmes eaux et déchets en Suisse: du traitement end-of-pipe à la fermeture des cycles. Principes de l'adduction, de l'évacuation et du traitement des eaux. Bases du dimensionnement des ouvrages,
ENV-402: Sanitary engineering for development
This MSc course deals with the water, sanitation and solid waste challenges in developing countries. You will learn about the current dialogue in these topics, identify key players, know existing opti
Show more
Related lectures (98)
Landfill Design and Management
Explores landfill design, water treatment, waste recovery, and site compliance, emphasizing drainage systems and environmental sustainability.
Environmental Legislation and Waste Management
Explores environmental legislation, waste management, and the concept of waste disposal.
Water and Waste Treatment: Historical Perspective
Explores the historical challenges and solutions in water and waste treatment, emphasizing the role of engineers in public health and sanitation.
Show more
Related publications (120)

Assessment of past dioxin emissions from waste incineration plants based on archive studies and process modeling: a new methodological tool

Florian Frédéric Vincent Breider, Xiaocheng Zhang

Pollution from past industrial activities can remain unnoticed for years or even decades because the pollutant has only recently gained attention or identified by measurements. Modeling the emission history of pollution is essential for estimating populati ...
2024

Nanoliter Liquid Packaging in a Bioresorbable Microsystem by Additive Manufacturing and its Application as a Controlled Drug Delivery Device

Jürgen Brugger, Arnaud Bertsch, Cristina Martin Olmos, Jongeon Park

Precise packaging of nanoliter amounts of liquid in a microsystem is important for many biomedical applications. However, existing liquid encapsulation technologies have limitations in terms of liquid waste, evaporation, trapped bubbles, and liquid degrada ...
2023

Advances in hydration and thermodynamics of cementitious systems

Karen Scrivener, Patrick Juilland, Aslam Kunhi Mohamed, Fabien Jacques Michel Georget, Thomas Matschei

Optimising the hydration of cementitious materials is crucial to leverage their full potential and avoid wasting resources, embodied energy and CO2. Understanding the fundamental mechanisms is key to reach these objectives. In this paper, we review progres ...
Oxford2023
Show more
Related concepts (12)
Water pollution
Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of water bodies, usually as a result of human activities, so that it negatively affects its uses. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and groundwater. Water pollution results when contaminants mix with these water bodies. Contaminants can come from one of four main sources: sewage discharges, industrial activities, agricultural activities, and urban runoff including stormwater. Water pollution is either surface water pollution or groundwater pollution.
Municipal solid waste
Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the United States and rubbish in Britain, is a waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. "Garbage" can also refer specifically to food waste, as in a garbage disposal; the two are sometimes collected separately. In the European Union, the semantic definition is 'mixed municipal waste,' given waste code 20 03 01 in the European Waste Catalog.
Soil contamination
Soil contamination, soil pollution, or land pollution as a part of land degradation is caused by the presence of xenobiotic (human-made) chemicals or other alteration in the natural soil environment. It is typically caused by industrial activity, agricultural chemicals or improper disposal of waste. The most common chemicals involved are petroleum hydrocarbons, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (such as naphthalene and benzo(a)pyrene), solvents, pesticides, lead, and other heavy metals.
Show more

Graph Chatbot

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.