EH & S CLINIC

摘要

Is the recovery of nickel metal from waste sludge considered recycling, reusing or reclaiming? First of all, let's not call it "sludge," but rather filter press cake from a wastewater pretreatment system. It is not uncommon to hear that there is some confusion by the differences among the definitions of recycling, reclaiming and reusing. The terms are often used interchangeably, which adds to their misunderstanding. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines each of them in 40CFR 262.1(a) (2) as follows: A material is "recycled" if it is used, reused or reclaimed. A material is considered "reclaimed" if it is processed to recover a usable product or if it is regenerated. A material is "used or reused" if it is employed as an ingredient (including use as an intermediate) in an industrial process to make a product (for example, distillation bottoms from one process used as feedstock in another process).