Effluent treatments can be divided into a number of categories that include:

• biological (eg aerobic and anaerobic)
• chemical (eg coagulation, flocculation, precipitation)
• physical (eg membrane, evaporation, incineration)
• combinations of the above methods

Virtually every method for treating wastewaters has been tried with scouring effluents with varying degrees of success. These methods can be

A major problem faced by all these methods of treatment has been sludge disposal because of both the amount of sludge generated and the potential environmental problems associated with some of the contaminants in the sludges.