TABLE OF CONTENTS Recycling, resource recovery, waste management and environmental protection have been among the major concerns in almost all extraction and process industries. The three areas are closely integrated with each other and the importance of each has been steadily growing in the last half century. It started with awareness of environmental pollution caused by almost all major industries, both by the waste products generated, which have to be disposed off as well as by the side effects resulting from the use of a number of industrial products.
A complete waste management system today must comprise waste reduction, reuse and recycling components and byproducts, commonly referred to as 4 Rs, in addition to disposal methods such as landfill and incineration.
Reduction refers to actions that lessen the quantity of waste generated and eventually needs to be managed. It is also called waste minimization and requires adopting existing technologies in such a way as to maximize the efficiency of production and collect the byproducts and waste generated and explore using them for beneficial purpose.
Reuse identifies actions based upon using something over again in its original form for the same purpose or some new one until such time as it becomes waste and needs to be managed. By these definitions, minimization has to be achieved before something becomes waste.
Once a waste is eventually generated, there are two basic options recycling and disposal. Recycling represents actions that manage in a way that results in using the materials...
