The paper presents investigations into the treatment of wastewater from the meat industry applying three hybrid processes in the following combinations: ultrafiltration-reverse osmosis, coagulation-reverse osmosis, coagulation-ultrafiltration-reverse osmosis. Neither coagulation nor ultrafiltration enabled a sufficient removal of pollutants from the wastewater, which, as a result, could not be discharged into receiving water due to elevated pollution indices. However, an additional treatment by means of reverse osmosis made it possible for the wastewater to be reused in the production cycle of a plant. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.