Emissions to water of hazardous substances from industry

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The manufacturing industries are responsible for large emission loads regarding various determinands of which for example 4 heavy metals in 6 EEA countries for which data are available (see figure 1). The manufacture of products results in many and varied emissions, depending on the products being manufactured and the processes and chemicals used. Emissions to water include heavy metals (e.g. cadmium, mercury), organic micropollutants, suspended solids and organic matter. Manufacture processing also has the risk of fire, explosions and spills and there is a need to dispose of contaminated sludge from waste treatment plants that all may also be a source of pollution of water. Variations in the emissions reported may be due to improved treatment but also to a certain extent to variations in the number of industrial sites included in the reporting (effect of threshold on sites that are close to this and included one year and not the following) or, when the data are based on measurements in rivers (i.e. load oriented), to variations in the river flow.