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No. 13 December 1997 News for All Interested in Featuring News, Analysis, Resources and Contacts |
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MillWatch table of contents
MillWatch No. 13 - December 1997
USA Announces Cluster Rules: Chlorine Dioxide Okayed
Worker Health Study
Pozone For Bleaching?
Bleach Enzymes In India
Kimberly-Clark Sells Mills
Mills For Sale
Soeharto Launches Kiani Kertas Mill
Crofton Landfill
Acid-Tolerant PCC
Hemp Symposium
Thanks this issue to Miranda Holmes, Billy Stern, Native Forests Network, Mark Stowe, Gainesville, FL, Rick Hind, Greenpeace USA, Carol Foort, Quadra Island, Laurie MacBride, Georgia Strait Alliance, Laurie Valeriano, Washington Toxics Coalition, Emily Miggings, ReThink Paper, San Francisco, Jay Ritchlin, Brainerd Foundation, Rogers Environmental Education Foundation, Bullitt Foundation, our many donors and all those in communities working to help their mill clean up.
On November 7th the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the signing of its "Cluster Rules" to regulate pollution from the American pulp and paper industry. The new regs cluster air and water emissions, a coordinated effort under both the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act.
The EPA estimates that approximately 155 kraft, soda, sulfite, and semi-chemical mills will be affected by the air pollution controls including 96 that bleach pulp to make paper which are also affected by the water discharge limits. EPA estimates the cost of compliance at $1.8 billion US; industry puts it at $2.3 billion.
The EPA first proposed the "Cluster Rule" in December 1993 to regulate air and water discharges, especially dioxin, from pulp and paper mills, citing concerns over human health.
EPA proposed two technology options in the cluster rule, Options A and B. Option B would have required the use of oxygen in pulping; this is a necessary first step towards a totally chlorine-free closed loop mill. After intense industry pressure, the Administration chose the weaker Option A, based on chlorine dioxide.
Greenpeace, the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), and most American environmental organizations condemned the decision. Tom Goldtooth of the IEN said, "EPA's proposal ignores urgent appeals from many Indian tribes and organizations."
The rule-making was based on the assumption that people eat no more than 140 grams (4.9 ounces) of freshwater fish per day. However, over 700,000 people living downstream from paper mills are known to eat up to 400 grams (14 ounces) of fresh-water fish per day, disproportionately increasing their exposure. "The new rule perpetuates the contamination of tribal food supplies and tribal people," said Goldtooth. "It is a betrayal of the highest magnitude." Northwest environmental groups, from the Washington Toxics Coalition to Montana's Women's Voices for the Earth, expressed outrage, saying the EPA had opted for pulp mill standards that fail to protect children, tribes and environmental health.
* Greenpeace, Washington Toxics Coalition, EPA, November 1997
Workers in the pulp and paper industry are exposed to different substances, such as hydrogen sulfide and other reduced sulfur compounds, chlorine, chlorine dioxide, sulfur dioxide, terpenes, and paper dust. Hitherto, exposures have been poorly described and more studies are certainly needed. Workers with repeated exposure peaks to chlorine seem to have an impaired lung function and an increased prevalence of respiratory symptoms. Exposure to high levels of paper dust (>5 mg/m3) causes impaired lung function.
Therefore, exposure to respiratory irritants is an important occupational risk among certain groups of pulp and paper workers. Some studies indicate that sulfate workers with high exposure to reduced sulfur compounds have an increased mortality due to is chemic heart disease. However, before any definite conclusions can be drawn, the impact of important confounders, such as shift-work and smoking habits, have to be further evaluated.
* K. Toren, S. Hagberg, and H Westberg, Department of Occupational Medicine, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Goteborg, Sweden. "Health effects of working in pulp and paper mills," American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 1996 Feb; 29(2):111-122
Berkeley National Laboratory researchers have discovered a novel method to use yellow phosphorous to produce powerful oxidation agents. The Pozone process is a simple, elegant solution to waste treatment problems. Yellow phosphorus is added to water, then oxygen or air is passed through the slurry. Naturally occurring reactions then immediately begin to produce ozone and other intermediate oxidizing agents. It can be applied to destruction of toxics in solid, liquid and gas phases. In laboratory experiments, the process has been shown to destroy 90% or more of toxic compounds. The final reaction byproduct is phosphoric acid, which can be easily collected without contamination by the toxic compounds being treated, and is a valuable commodity. This makes the economics of Pozone very favourable. The process has been demonstrated to work with a wide range of toxics including: nitrobenzene, aniline, benzoic acid, phenol, isophorone, chlorobenzene, PCBs, aliphatic chlorides, toluene, diakyl sulfide, azo-dyes, and organophosphorus pesticides.
Pozone can also be coupled with activated carbon filtering of toxic wastes, using Pozone to regenerate the carbon, and reducing costs. Normally activated carbon absorbents are transported to another location for regeneration, which requires costly hazardous material transportation.
For pulp bleaching, Pozone provides an attractive alternative to chlorine bleaching, which produces a toxic waste stream. Ozone bleaching eliminates the toxic waste stream, but until now has been produced via corona discharge, which results in high energy costs. Pozone can cut the cost of producing ozone in half. Bench scale tests have shown the process will bleach pulp to industry standards of brightness.
Pozone is patented and available for licensing.
* Contact Technology Transfer Department, E.O. Lawrence, Berkeley National Laboratory MS 90-1070, Berkeley, CA 94720; ph: (510)486-6467; fax: (510)486-6457, email: TTD@lbl.gov
India's Esvin Bio-Systems will commercialize Biotech International of Australia's bleach boosting enzyme, which reduces bleach chemicals in wood pulp and increases paper brightness. Preliminary trials have already been conducted. The enzyme will be implemented on a mill-scale basis in the near future. A factory in Tamil Nadu will produce over four lakh litres of concentrated enzyme annually.
* Business Line, October 1997
Kimberly-Clark Corp. has sold its Terrace Bay Ontario and New Glascow, Nova Scotia pulp mills to Vancouver-based Harmac Pacific for about $540 million. Woodlands of two million hectares of Crown land cutting rights in Ontario and 400,000 hectares of private land in Nova Scotia, are included in the sale. Kimberly-Clark will purchase a significant portion of the pulp produced by the mills over the next five to seven years under contracts with Harmac Pacific.
The Harmac mill, based in Nanaimo BC with a capacity of 365,000 tonnes, was spun off from MacMillan Bloedel holdings in 1994. The new purchase makes Harmac Pacific the largest market pulp producer in Canada, with a capacity of over a million tonnes. The Pictou mill is the lowest cost producer in Canada, partially because the province runs the secondary treatment plant for the mill.
* Press Releases and the Vancouver Sun, November 1997 and March 1994
Louisiana-Pacific will lay off 3,300 workers (27% of its workforce) over the next two years, and sell roughly $1 billion in assets, including its pulp mill in Samoa, California. Meanwhile, Champion Papers has its Canton mill up for sale. The company has been carrying out flagship "bleach plant filtrate" experiments at this mill, attempting to create the conditions for a closed effluent system on a chlorine dioxide bleaching plant. Champion plans to grow by acquisition in coated papers, softwood timberlands, paper distribution and unbleached paperboard.
* Champion Press Release, October 1997, Wall Street Journal, November 1997
In October President Soeharto of Indonesia launched PT Kiani Kertas' $1.3 billion US pulp mill in East Kalimantan, praising it as an environmentally sustainable industry. Soeharto said the new mill would strengthen the country's domestic paper industry and non-oil exports as most of its production would be destined for export markets. The plant, the largest single-line pulp mill in Southeast Asia, will reach its full capacity of 500,000 tons per annum by January. Three more plants are scheduled for East Kalimantan, which will give it the world's largest concentration of pulp and paper production.
Kiani Kertas is almost completely owned by timber baron Muhammad "Bob" Hasan, a close friend of the President. Among other interests, Hasan's companies own almost 500,000 hectares of forest concessions in East Kalimantan. Early in 1997 Kiani Kertas received a $98 million US loan from government reforestation funds, based on a Presidential instruction.
Fires from rice and forest plantation clearings in Kalimantan, Sumatra and West Papua caused a state of emergency in several southeast Asian countries during the fall, with thick smoke drifting hundreds of miles for weeks on end. Monsoon rains failed due to an extended El Nino.
* Jakarta Post, Guardian Weekly, and TAPOL, (Indonesian Human Rights Campaign). Bulletin # 143, October 1997
Fletcher Challenge's Crofton pulp mill has run into opposition from salmon enhancement, community and native leaders as it attempts to set up a new industrial waste dump on private land for its fly ash and other solid wastes. The mill is promising a state- of-the-art landfill, but the Halalt First Nation leaders fear drinking water and fish habitat in Bonsall Creek will be polluted if the plastic liners leak.
* Nanaimo Daily News and Cowichan Valley News Leader, November 1997
In November, Minerals Technologies of New York announced that it will be providing three North American groundwood paper mills with precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) using patented Acid-Tolerant technology. In February, Minerals Technologies announced the first on-site dedicated Acid-Tolerant satellite plant at a paper mill in Finland. PCC is a specialty pigment for filling and coating paper. Minerals Technologies has been involved predominantly in the wood-free sector of the paper market, which produces high-quality printing and writing papers such as office copy paper. The ground wood sector produces paper from mechanically processed pulp for magazines, catalogues and newsprint.
Minerals Technologies originated the satellite concept for making and delivering PCC on site at paper mills, constructing its first PCC satellite plant in 1986. Today, Minerals Technologies has 49 satellite plants in operation around the world with sales of $556 million in 1996.
* November 1997 Minerals Technologies Inc., 1-888- MTX-NEWS (689-6397), www.shareholder.com/minerals
'Increasing Returns' is the theme for the Second Annual Commercial & Industrial Hemp Symposium, to be held February 18th and 19th, 1998 in Vancouver BC. The focus will be regulations for commercial hemp growth to be proposed by Health Canada's Health Protection Branch in January.
In January Wiseman Noble and the Technical Section of the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association are hosting The Canadian Non-Wood Fibre Symposium. Later, Discovery '98 Agri-Food & Fibre Forum will be held in Melfort, Saskatchewan. Sponsors include the Bank of Montreal, Cannabis Cafe, the Canadian Pulp & Paper Association and the Saskatchewan Agri-Food Equity Fund.
* For more information, visit: www.wisenoble.com or phone Commercial Hemp Magazine, (604)258-7171, fax: (604)258-7144