Supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) provides high destruction efficiencies for a wide variety of hazardous wastes at low reactor residence times. This paper studies the feasibility of the SCWO process for the treatment of the esterification wastewater from the poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) industry, for which the major contaminant product is ethylene glycol. Both the feed and the liquid-phase product were analyzed in terms of total organic carbon (TOC) to determine the efficiency of the process. Effluent from the PET industry contained 16000 mg/L TOC, equivalent to 4 wt % ethylene glycol. Experiments were carried out in a pilot plant equipped with a pressure shell and a cooled-wall reactor. The effects of temperature and oxidant concentration on removal efficiency were investigated. Tests were performed in the range of 550-750 degreesC at a pressure of 23 x 10(6) Pa. Results showed elimination efficiencies of up to 99.9% at 630 degreesC and residence times of less than 50 s. The scale-up of this plant has been simulated using the software Aspen Plus.