Hazardous and Industrial Wastes Management: a Case Study of Khazra Industrial Park, Kerman

Background & Aims of the Study: Increasing hazardous industrial wastes and lack of necessaryregulations for management of them have led to serious problems in some parts of Iran. The aimof this study was to evaluate the situation of collection, transportation, recycling, and disposal ofhazardous industrial wastes in the Khazra Industrial Park of Kerman, Iran.Materials & Methods: This study was a descriptive cross-sectional study that was done usingquestionnaires and local visits during year 2009. In this questionnaire, some information aboutthe industrial wastes, production, storage on site, collection, transformation, sorting, recycling,and disposal were recorded.Results: In the Khazra Industrial Park, 71,600 kg/day of different industrial waste is produced.The biggest proportion of waste includes metals, and construction and demolition waste whichare about 16,500 tons a year. The smallest proportion is non-iron metal waste, which is producedat a rate of 8 tons per year. 88.7 percent of the active industries at the Khazra Industrial Parkproduce solid industrial waste. Most of the industrial units do not use a united and coordinatedsystem for storing waste and have no specific place for temporary storage inside the industrialpark. The majority of industrial waste collection, which is about 59.8%, is done by privatecontractors. The industrial units transfer their waste separately, and just 9 industrial units recycletheir waste. Disposal of these wastes is mainly done by selling to trading agencies. Each day, 3tons of hazardous industrial waste is produced in this park. The highest production belongs to theoil factory (Keyhan Motor).Conclusions: According to the results, the Khazra Industrial Park needs a unified system forstoring, transporting and collecting the sorted waste, and it also needs to have a transportationstation with basic facilities. The wastes of most industrial units at the Khazra Industrial Parkhave the potential for recycling and re-usage in other industries. The best, most economic, andmost environment-friendly waste management activity of the Khazra Industrial Park isprevention of production, increase in the potential of recycling, and reuse of material withemphasis on sorting at the production site, increase of mechanical sorting, and decrease inproduction of disposable waste.