AbstractThe promulgation of increasingly stringent effluent guidelines and penalities for permit violations has dictated the need for reliable and cost‐effective industrial wastewater treatment systems. This paper presents a case study that compares industrial wastewater treatment system requirements for indirect and direct discharge options. The results are based on a five‐month bench‐scale study that compared biological treatment and activated carbon treatment for removal of priority pollutants from a complex organic chemicals wastewater. Alternative discharge limits were defined by the OCPSF categorical limits, local POTW requirements and state water quality standards.The results of this study indicated that suspended solids removal followed by granular activated carbon (GAC) columns was the most cost‐effective pretreatment