A typical municipal sewage treatment plant in an industrialized country may include primary treatment to remove solid material, secondary treatment to digest dissolved and suspended organic material as well as the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus, and - sometimes but not always - disinfection to kill Pathogenic Bacteria. The sewage sludge that is produced in sewage treatment plants undergoes sludge treatment. Larger municipalities often include factories discharging industrial wastewater into the municipal sewer system. The term "sewage treatment plant" is nowadays often replaced with the term "wastewater treatment plant".

Disposal of wastewaters from an industrial plant is a difficult and costly problem. Most petroleum refineries, chemical and petrochemical plants have onsite facilities to treat their wastewaters so that the pollutant concentrations in the treated wastewater comply with the local and/or national regulations regarding disposal of wastewaters into community treatment plants or into rivers, lakes or oceans.

Industrial wastewater treatment plants are required where municipal sewage treatment plants are unavailable or cannot adequately treat specific industrial wastewaters. Industrial wastewater plants may reduce raw water costs by converting selected wastewaters to reclaimed water used for different purposes. Industrial wastewater treatment plants may reduce wastewater treatment charges collected by municipal sewage treatment plants by pre-treating wastewaters to reduce concentrations of pollutants measured to determine user fees.