Sugar technology pollutes the environment emitting huge quantities of industrial waste water and air pollutants (emission from combustion plants, saturation gas), and in some cases the noise and the utilization of some by-products can also cause problemes. Some of the Hungarian sugar factories can not meet even the present environmental requirements, that are less strict than the EU regulations, though there have been steps forward during the last years to reduce the environmental effects of sugar industry. The new requirements that are under elaboration in the course of EU harmonization will necessitate significant development, partly changes in the technology, partly environmental investment first of all in the following fields: 1. water systems (decrease of the water consumption, improvement of waste water treatment); 2. air (decrease of specific energy consumption, decrease of emission of air pollutants); 3. decrease of noise. In these fields in general the application - and in some cases the adoption - of existing technologies are necessary with the financial sources to cover the costs. To decrease the emissions not only the modernization of technologies and the environmental investments can help, but the improvement of the quality of raw material and technological aids. The question of utilization of by-products and waste can not be neglected either: first of all the conditions of the use of carbo-natation sludge and earth removed from beet must be improved, possibly supported from state sources.
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