alum sludge is the main residual by-product from drinking-water-treatment processes including coagulation, flocculation, clarification and filtration, followed by dewatering in plants using aluminium salt as a coagulant. It is the most widely generated water-treatment residual worldwide – and is mostly sent to landfill being perceived as a waste of little known reuse value. In Ireland, an annua...

Oily sludge is one of the most significant solid wastes generated in the petroleum industry. It is a complex emulsion of various petroleum hydrocarbons (PHCs), water, heavy metals, and solid particles. Due to its hazardous nature and increased generation quantities around the world, the effective treatment of oily sludge has attracted widespread attention. In this review, the origin, characteri...

The volume of sludge produced annually is very high and poses serious disposal problems. The traditional methods of sludge disposal produce secondary pollutants. Therefore, the alternate or suitable solution is reuse of sludge in an ecofriendly approach. Biotechnology is an interesting tool to add value to the processes involved in wastewater and wastewater sludge disposal/reuse. In this contex...

The Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) procedure was used to compare waste management options for kraft pulp mill sludge following its anaerobic digestion. Anaerobic digestion of sludge is advantageous because it produces biogas that may be used to generate electricity, heat and biofuels. However, adequate management of the digested sludge is essential. Landfill disposal is a non-sustainab...

The treatment and disposal of sewage sludge is an expensive and environmentally sensitive problem. It is also a growing problem world-wide since sludge production will continue to increase as new sewage treatment works are built and environmental quality standards become more stringent. With some traditional disposal routes coming under pressure, and others such as sea disposal having been phas...

Sewage sludge was disposed of in Liverpool Bay for over 100 years. Annual amounts increased from 0.5 million tonnes per annum in 1900 to approximately 2 million tonnes per annum by 1995. Macrofauna and a suite of environmental variables were collected at a station adjacent to, and a reference station distant from, the disposal site over 13 years, spanning a pre- (1990-1998) and post- (1999-2003...

The treatment of water from paint spray booths in automobile assembly plants typically involves applications of large quantity of chemicals as coagulants and flocculants. Suspended paint solids are brought to water surface in sludge pits after these chemicals are added. The suspended paint particles are then mechanically collected and removed as sludge for further treatment and disposal. There ...

Each day, 15,000 tons of sludge solids are removed from U.S. wastewater treatment plants. A combination of events has caused disposal of this sludge to build up to a major problem for an increasing number of communities. Municipal sanitary wastewater contains about 0.35 pounds of dry solids per person per day. Added to this load are various commercial and industrial wastes. Ever-greater quantit...

In the present study, sludge from a steel wastewater treatment plant (SWWTP) was analyzed regarding its physicochemical characteristics and metal contents, and disposal options. For these purposes, grab sampling was used to collect 18 slurry and 18 cake sludge samples in 6 mouth (May-October 2012). Mann-Whitney U test, one sample T-test and Wilcoxon signed rank test were applied to analyze the ...

More stringent controls on the quality of wastewater discharges have given rise to increasing volumes of sewage sludge for disposal, principally to land, using either land-spreading or sludge-to-landfill operations. Current sludge-to-landfill methods generally involve mixing the concentrated sludge with other solid waste in municipal landfills. However, stricter waste disposal legislation and h...