or d c effluent periodically the d c or d c effluent flow therethrough is interrupted and the bed is regenerated by passing at least a portion of the basic e or o stage effluent therethrough a flushing of the system using oxygen or extraction stage effluent elutes the color bodies cod bod and other organics from the bed material and it concentrates them in the extraction or oxygen stage effluent thus the result is two separate streams of effluent one containing the majority of the process generated inorganic chloride ion the other containing the majority of bod color bodies cod and other organics the inorganic chloride containing stream can be readily neutralized and discarded alternately the inorganic chloride containing stream may be stripped before or after entering the activated bed to remove volatile low molecular weight contaminants preferably by evaporation the bod cod color bodies and other organics containing stream can be recycled to a recovery furnace where they may be burned recovering heat and caustic values a particular advantage to this process is that very few chloride ions are present in the cod bod color bodies and other organics containing stream thereby significantly reducing the corrosion and other adverse affects to the incinerator and other in line equipment another advantage.