There are over 190,000 tons per year of the sludge containing heavy metals (SHM) generated from industries in Korea. The SHM is so hazardous waste, it needs proper intermediate treatment before final disposal. At present, the common intermediate treatment and final disposal technologies of SHM are solidification and landfill. However, the future treatment and disposal technologies of SHM will be carry out to fulfill in both the environmental aspect and resource recycling. Thus, how to reduce the generation of SHM and recycle the valuable metal from SHM become the major subjects in the global world. In this article, in order to prospect the effective processing of SHM, the generation and processing of the sludge from plating wastewater, the research and development of valuable metal recycling technology and problems were summarized.