DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Any contaminated waste material may be treated in accordance with the present invention so long as it is in the form of a sludge, or can be readily converted to a sludge by the addition or removal of water.
Term "sludge", as used herein means a material which is flowable material at ordinary temperatures and about atmospheric pressure, but which has a relatively high solids content, and which can typically be pumped by conventionally pumping means.
Sludges will normally have a density greater than about 9 lb/gal.
Non-limiting examples of such wastes included sludges which settle as sedimentation layers at the bottom of the sea, lakes, and rivers; effluent sludges discharged from various industries including pharmaceutical, tanning, paper and pulp manufacturing, wool washing, fermenting, food processing, metal surface processing, plating, ore dressing, coal washing, and fume desulfurizing; and still other wastes, such as sewage sludges discharged from sewage processing stations, and those resulting from the drilling, production, and refining of petroleum materials.
Such wastes are often contaminated with substances affecting the ecological system, including heavy metals, such as copper, lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, hexavalent chromium; and other chronically toxic compounds such as PCB, PCP, DDT, 2-BHC, Dieldrin, Chlordecone, Mirex, Parathion, cyanic compounds, alkyl-mercury compounds; and the like.
It is also within the scope of the present invention to treat waste material which is contaminated with naturally occurring radioactive materials.
The term "contaminated waste", as used herein, means any waste material which is a sludge (flowable), or which is nonflowable and can be converted into a sludge by the addition of water, and which is environmentally unacceptable.
By "environmentally unacceptable", I mean those materials which governmental regulations define as being harmful, or potentially harmful, to the ecological system pertaining to the environment and which must be disposed of in accordance with governmental laws and/or regulations
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