title: Industrial effluent quality, pollution monitoring and environmental management.
abstract: Royal Commission Environmental Control Department (RC-ECD) at Yanbu industrial city in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has established a well-defined monitoring program to control the pollution from industrial effluents. The quality of effluent from each facility is monitored round the clock. Different strategic measures have been taken by the RC-ECD to implement the zero discharge policy of RC. Industries are required to pre-treat the effluent to conform pretreatment standards before discharging to central biological treatment plant. Industries are not allowed to discharge any treated or untreated effluent in open channels. After treatment, reclaimed water must have to comply with direct discharge standards before discharge to the sea. Data of industrial wastewater collected from five major industries and central industrial wastewater treatment plant (IWTP) is summarized in this report. During 5-year period, 3,705 samples were collected and analyzed for 43,436 parameters. There were 1,377 violations from pretreatment standards from all the industries. Overall violation percentage was 3.17%. Maximum violations were recorded from one of the petrochemical plants. The results show no significant pollution due to heavy metals. Almost all heavy metals were within RC pretreatment standards. High COD and TOC indicates that major pollution was due to hydrocarbons. Typical compounds identified by GC-MS were branched alkanes, branched alkenes, aliphatic ketones, substituted thiophenes, substituted phenols, aromatics and aromatic alcohols. Quality of treated water was also in compliance with RC direct discharge standards. In order to achieve the zero discharge goal, further studies and measures are in progress.
authors.affiliation: Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, Directorate General for Royal Commission at Yanbu, Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. maqbool_60@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Maqbool
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ahmad
authors.forename: Ahmad S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Bajahlan
authors.forename: Waleed S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Hammad
mesh_terms: D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D004787:Environmental Pollution / Q000032:analysis* / Q000517:prevention & control; D007220:Industrial Waste; D012529:Saudi Arabia; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods*; D018508:Water Purification / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D007220:Industrial Waste