Abstract |
Innovative practices for treating waste streams containing heavy metals often involve technologies or systems that either reduce the amount of waste generated or recover reusable resources. With the land disposal of metal treatment residuals becoming less of an accepted waste management alternative, waste minimization practices have received increasing popularity in the primary metals industry. Preferred management practices for reducing or eliminating generated wastes are source reduction (i.e., material sustitution, recycle/reuse) and reduction of toxicity in order to meet technology-based treatment standards. Major topics to be discussed in the chapter will focus on waste stream characterizations, process descriptions, and summarized results on demonstrations and audits. Only state-of-the-art and innovative approaches will be considered for review. Particular emphasis will be placed on waste minimization approaches (e.g. source reduction techniques, concentration and reuse of waste contaminants, material substitution), recovery techniques (e.g. electrolytic recovery, membrane technologies, ion exchange) and centralized waste treatment facilities. |