The recycling of dusts from the iron and steel industry is getting more and more important. The costs and requirements of land filling are rising and therefore companies show an intensified interest in new recycling strategies. The rising of sustainability hand in hand with the high rate of valuable metals in these residues, supports new research activities and developments in this recycling sector. Especially zinc but also iron and lead are economic factors within treatment-strategies of steel mill dusts. The present thesis gives a detailed overview of fundamental studies concerning the chemical and physical composition of dusts from basic oxygen furnaces, electric arc furnaces for steel production and cupola furnaces. Furthermore processes for the recycling of these dusts are described and compared, describing the present market situation. Disadvantages of current recycling technologies are resulting in the investigation of new technologies for the treatment of filter dusts. In course of this thesis a new multi-stage process was developed for the recycling of high zinc containing steel mill dusts. The fundamental advantage compared to common technologies, is the low level of impurities in the produced crude zinc oxide which results in higher revenues and an increasing sales market. Furthermore the simultaneous recovery of iron is characteristic. Especially fundamental thermodynamic calculations, experiments in the induction furnace and the top blown rotary converter as well as basic energy and economical balances are showing a fast amortization of the concept. Furthermore a treatment of by-products of common steel dust recycling technologies was investigated within this thesis. These residues are still relatively high in heavy metals, and therefore in Europe cannot be utilized in different applications like road construction or cement industry. Different treatment techniques showed that the amount of these impurities can be reduced what, in addition to the recovery of valuable materials, opens new application fields for such slags.