A practice used in industry to reduce the quality of industrial waste is which of the following?

• A. filtration
• B. recycling
• C. evaporation
• D. disinfection

Answer: (B)

Recycling is the practice that turns waste materials back into usable inputs, so it lowers the amount of waste produced and saves resources. In industry, recovering solvents, metals, or polymers from spent streams and reusing them keeps valuable materials out of disposal and reduces the need for fresh raw materials. Filtration, evaporation, and disinfection are treatment steps that either remove contaminants to improve quality (filtration, disinfection) or reduce volume but often concentrate wastes (evaporation), without reclaiming materials for reuse. Recycling directly achieves waste minimization by reclaiming value from the waste stream, making it the best fit.