Waste treatment process comprising treating waste stream with base at elevated temperature

A waste treatment process and system is described, which finds application in dechlorinating carbohydrates and/or hydrolysing dimethyl formamide and/or dimethyl acetamide in a waste stream. The process includes treating the waste stream with base at a pH of from 11 to 14, and at a temperature of from 93°C (200°F) to 166°C (330°F). Waste from a sucralose production process (single feed stream 101) and aqueous sodium hydroxide solution (6) are fed to a destruction reactor (11). An output stream (110) is taken from the reaction mixture and fed into a dimethylamine (DMA) distillation column (14) from which an output DMA solution (17) is obtained. The recovered DMA can be formylated to give dimethyl formamide and the resulting dimethyl formamide can then be used as a solvent in a sucralose production process.