Effective waste management must address waste reduction, reuse, recovery/recycle and, as the least progressive option, waste treatment. Catalysis can serve as an integral green processing tool, ensuring lower operating pressures/temperatures with a reduction in energy requirements while providing alternative cleaner synthesis routes and facilitating waste conversion to reusable material. The case study chosen to illustrate the role that catalysis has to play in waste minimization deals with the conversion of toxic chlorophenols in wastewater. The presence of chloro-organic emissions is of increasing concern with mounting evidence of adverse ecological and public health impacts. A critical overview of the existing treatment technologies is provided with an analysis of the available literature on catalytic dechlorination. The efficacy of Pd/Al2O3 to promote the hydrogen-mediated dechlorination of mono- and dichlorophenols is demonstrated, taking account of both the physical and chemical contributions in this three-phase (solid catalyst and liquid/gaseous reactants) system. Hydrodechlorination activity and selectivity trends are discussed in terms of chloro-isomer structure, the influence of temperature is discussed, the role of base (NaOH) addition is examined and the feasibility of catalyst reuse is addressed. (c) 2005 Society of Chemical Industry.