Sources of Industrial Wastes
These are wastes from light and heavy manufacturing, fabrication, construction sites, power and chemical plants. They include: housekeeping wastes, packaging, food wastes, construction and demolition materials, hazardous wastes, ashes, special wastes etc.
It is the waste produced by industrial activity, which includes any material that is rendered useless during a manufacturing process such as that of factories, industries, mills, and mining operations.
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, liquid, gaseous, hazardous or non-hazardous waste.
Hazardous waste may result from manufacturing or other industrial processes. Certain commercial products such as cleaning fluids, paints or pesticides discarded by commercial establishments or individuals can also be defined as hazardous waste.
Non-hazardous industrial wastes are those that do not meet the EPA’s definition of hazardous waste – and are not municipal waste.
Read Also : Types of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)
Industrial waste, if improperly managed, can pose dangerous health and environmental consequences. The introduction of many new products for the home and office – computers, drugs, textiles, paints and dyes, plastics – also introduced hazardous waste, including toxic chemicals, into the environment.
The human health and environmental impacts of many of these chemicals are largely unknown. High levels of toxic contaminants have been found in animals and humans, particularly those, like farm workers and oil and gas workers, who are continually exposed to such waste streams.
Sources of Industrial Waste
The wastes produced in industries are heterogeneous and each category of industries differs in the amount and type of waste it produces. Industrial wastes may be solids or liquids.
Industrial solid wastes include: solid wastes generated from mining and tailings; solid wastes from metallurgical industries which include – varies of slag from metallurgical procedure and processing of metal and non–metal; solid waste from power industries: coal fly ash, coal slag, fuel ash, gangue generated from coal excavating and coal washing; solid wastes from chemical industries: inferior products, outgrowth, disabled catalyst, waste additives, raw materials that have not reacted etc.; solid wastes from oil chemical industries: oil mud, tar shale slag, waste catalyst, waste organic solvent; solid wastes from light industries: sludge, animal residue, waste acids, waste alkali, others from food processing such as food industries, paper making and printing industries, spinning and dye – printing industries and leather industries; other industrial solid wastes include: metal dross from mechanical processing, plant sludge, construction and demolition wastes and slags from other processing industries.
Read Also : Treatment/Transformation of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)
Industrial liquid wastes are generally divided into two: organic and inorganic industrial liquid wastes. In organic liquid wastes, the effluents contain organic substances having various origins and properties.
Most organic industrial wastewaters are produced by the following industries and plants: factories manufacturing pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, organic dye-stuffs, glue and adhesives, soaps, synthetic detergents, pesticides and herbicides; tanneries and leather factories; textile factories; cellulose and paper manufacturing plants; factories of the oil refining industry; brewery and fermentation factories; metal processing industry.
The inorganic industrial wastewater is produced mainly in the coal and steel industry, in the nonmetallic minerals industry and in commercial enterprises and industries for the surface processing of metals (iron picking works and electroplating plants).
These wastewaters contain a large proportion of suspended matter, which can be eliminated by sedimentation, often together with chemical flocculation through the addition of iron or aluminum salts, flocculation agents and some kinds of organic polymers.
