The effluent discharged from wool scouring poses a number of problems in terms of effluent treatment. These problems include:

Organic load - The organic load from a typical wool scouring line (two metres wide) is equivalent to a population of 50,000 people. About 75% of the organic load comes from the wool wax.

Biorefractory nature of wool wax - Wool wax is very difficult to degrade by biological microorganisms, because of both its chemical and physical characteristics.

Pesticide residues - Pesticides are applied to wool on the farm to control various sheep parasites. The type of pesticide and the amount found in the effluent depends upon the nature of the parasite, the rate of breakdown of the pesticide on the fleece and the time of treatment in relation to the time of harvesting of the wool. With Australian wools, the levels of residual pesticide are very low.

Detergent residues - The most commonly used detergents used to wash wool are alkylphenol ethoxylate nonionic detergents. When these detergents are biodegraded one of the byproducts is alkylphenol. This chemical can be highly toxic to some species as well as causing possible environmental problems because of its estrogenic mimicking properties. However, biodegradable alternatives that are not based upon alkylphenol are readily available.

Potassium levels - Potassium is an important nutrient. Suint contains about 25% potassium by weight. This suggests that treated scouring effluents should be beneficial when applied to the land. However, the amount of potassium in scouring effluents can leave to both salination and degradation in soil structure if too much is applied.