ABSTRACT
Industries produce a huge amount of waste as by-products during different processing steps. This waste is laden with glass, plastics, metals, and other materials which end up in landfill causing environmental pollution. Recycling of these wastes can help reduce the volume of wastes as well as act as secondary sources for these materials. One such component from these wastes is metal, which can be recycled many times. Thus, wastes can act as artificial ores for many base and valuable metals and help meet the escalating demand. This chapter summarizes the generation and composition of various metal-containing industrial wastes. According to the origins and characteristics, wastes can be classified into different types including electronic, energy storage, metal production, petrochemical, automobile wastes, etc. The chapter also briefs about the metal speciation which gives an idea about the chemical forms of metals and their binding states in the wastes and is an important factor that influences the efficiency of metal bioleaching.
