MillWatch #18 (Dec 1998): News for People Interested in CLEAN Pulp and Paper Production

MillWatch is sponsored by Reach for Unbleached! Canada to connect people and resources working on pulp and paper issues. Thanks to Rhonda Turner, East Kootenay Environmental Society, Joan Sell, Quadra Resort, Tony Tweedale, Montana CHEER; Philip Fleischer; the Brainerd Foundation and our donors who fund this newsletter, and all those in communities working to help their mill clean up. Write to us!

The World Bank's Pollution Prevention and Abatement Handbook 1998 clearly states that Totally Chlorine Free (TCF) is the best pulp bleaching option and should be combined with zero effluent, or closed-loop, processes for premium environmental performance. Mill projects, whether conversion or greenfield (new), which meet these goals will be viewed most favourably by the Bank when evaluating environmental factors in proposals. The Industry Sector Guidelines: Pulp and Paper Mills contains the following highlights (expanded comments by this author in italics):

The targets are ambitious yet achievable goals. Unfortunately, while chlorine dioxide bleaching is clearly referred to as a minimum acceptable standard, many of the parameter ranges specified can be met with ECF mills. The gap between stated goals, and actual numbers is disappointing. While the numbers will drive potential investors to design relatively advanced ECF mills, they will not force anyone to adopt TCF, or closed loop technology.

The World Bank should fund pulp projects that can attain the excellent environmental and human health goals stated in its rhetoric. That would truly be money well spent.

This report, prepared for Reach for Unbleached!, the Zero Toxics Alliance Pulp Caucus, and Greenpeace International, details the state of current research and technological development in the field of ecologically responsible kraft pulp manufacture. Developments designed to mitigate and eliminate human and environmental health impacts are emphasised. Also explored in depth is the potential for operating closed loop pulp mills which discharge no wastewater into our rivers and oceans and minimise the quantity and toxicity of air pollution and solid waste. This report will also soon be available to download in pdf format from the Greenpeace International web page.

This fascinating thesis provides an overview of conflicts in the pulp and paper industries of Australia, Indonesia and Thailand in the late 1980s and early 1990s and adds insights into the strength of environmental activism in Southeast Asia. In all these countries, as well as Malaysia, high-profile disputes were triggered by local and indigenous resistance to the conversion of natural old growth forests to pulp plantations. The strength of these resistance movements led to government action to temporarily close the associated pulp mills after disastrous accidents, or in the case of Australia's Wesley Vale, to refuse the building permits. In response, by the mid-1990s, mills in all three countries were adopting cleaner production technologies with efficient secondary treatment and 100% chlorine dioxide substitution or, in a few cases, Totally Chlorine Free bleaching.

Sonnenfeld concludes that local activists had successfully influenced government regulation of new and existing industry. Initially resistant to change, leading pulp manufacturers in these countries modified existing processes, adopted new technologies, produced more efficiently, and gained access to new (green) markets. Globally, Greenpeace International played a crucial role in encouraging development and adoption of the new technologies.

All new mills in the region are running at or above British Columbia standards, and are being built with the capacity to run Totally Chlorine Free. This research makes it clear that, at least in terms of environmental technology, there will be no "race to the bottom" in southeast Asia if transnational capital tries to flee environmental regulation.

* Contact: David A. Sonnenfeld, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Sociology, Washington State University, 2710 University Drive, Richland, WA, 99352-1671; ph (509)372-7375; fax (509)372-7100; email: sonn@wsu.edu; website: http://www.tricity.wsu.edu/sonn

In November Rolland Inc, makers of Rolland New Life DP 100, announced that the paper now meets the independently verified, Processed Chlorine Free (PCF) certification standards of the Chlorine Free Products Association. This verification assures consumers that they are purchasing environmentally safe chlorine-free pulp and paper products.

This paper has been promoted and supported by environmental purchasers for the last year. It is the paper selected by the Reach for Unbleached/Paper Choice co-operative Buying Club for bulk buys in British Columbia.

Rolland has adjusted the paper's content from its previous 100% recycled standard: it is now certified as containing 80% recycled content, 60% post-consumer waste and 20% virgin content that is totally chlorine free. The TCF pulp is imported from Europe to add strength and runnability to the recycled fibre.

"The CFPA's certification program is something all serious environmental paper makers need to differentiate their grades. By certifying claims, we eliminate 95% of the unsubstantiated noise made by other paper makers in our market," Rolland Senior Market Manager Claude Nelson said. Rolland New Life DP also carries the Canadian EcoLogo.

* Contact Mika Valtasaari, Chlorine Free Products Association (847)658-6104; Claude Nelson , Rolland Inc (800)567-9872; Paper Choice (800)567-4055; or Reach for Unbleached!

As part of the on-going British Columbia Cancer Agency research into cancer incidence among pulp mill workers in British Columbia, workers wore three different kinds of monitoring devices to trace exposure to gasses. Shift-long averages and short-term exposures were charted for five indicator gasses: carbon monoxide, chlorine dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, calcium oxide and wood dust. Workers in different job categories and areas of the mill were measured over 73 days in 1994, generating 1678 measurements.

Most parameters showed low levels of exposure, except for upset conditions as during a spill, with some startling exceptions. The mill was a 100% chlorine dioxide substituted (ECF) mill, but workers were also exposed, often without realising it, to short high peaks of chlorine in most areas, indicating that the ClO2 was breaking down into chlorine on the mill site. Eight hour averages remained within permissible limits, despite the peaks which exceeded short-term allowable exposures.

* Industrial Hygiene Aspects of a Sampling Survey at a Bleached-Kraft Pulp Mill in British Columbia, George Astrakianakis et al, American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal, October 1998

"Co-gen" is all the rage among pulp mills in British Columbia these days. Elk Falls has just sailed through an Environ mental Assessment for a 245 MW megawatt plant, fired by natural gas, which will cogenerate process steam for use by the mill. The mill says this will allow it to shut down two old wood/oil-fired boilers. Although ICP, the company building the cogen plant, claims that this will improve air quality in Campbell River, the net impact will be to increase greenhouse gas and other emissions in the area, with the exception of sulphur dioxide. Elk Falls Environmental Manager Chuck Easton is on record as stating that he doubts the claims of significant air quality improvement.

Meanwhile, in the East Kootenays, Crestbrook mill's new hog fuel burner, constructed from a recycled recovery boiler, will accept the wood waste from beehive burners in the area, thus reducing the immediate impact of poor combustion. The East Kootenay Environmental Society, and other concerned citizens, successfully lobbied to have the mill remove provisions for burning sludge from the project application, although the mill reserves the right to re activate this option at a later date.

At Powell River, north of the Sunshine Coast, a new power boiler which will import wood waste to create power for the mill, was ordered shut down pending the hearing of an appeal, by the Environmental Appeal Board. This EAB ruling, immediately overruled by Cabinet, was based on citizens' concerns about the impact on local air quality.

In the case of Elk Falls, located on power-poor northern Vancouver Island, the co-gen plant might forestall moves to dam the salmon-rich Nimkish River. In the valleys of the East Kootenays, particulate matter has been a serious pollution concern.

All the mills claim that despite, or in some cases, because of, the projects, local air quality will meet provincial air quality objectives most of the time.

Citizen Air Quality Log

Submit to your regional ministry of environment office

Date: _________________ Nature of complaint: ___________________________________________

Duration: ____________________ Start Time: ______________ End Time:___________________

Location:_______________________________________________________________________

General Weather: __clear __cloudy __calm __windy Temperature: _____________

Other observations:_______________________________________________________________

Characteristics

Type of smell: __rotten eggs __natural gas __sewage __other:_____________________________

Strength: __trace __strong __overpowering

Colour of smoke: __white __opaque __black __other:__________

Name: __________________________________________________ Phone: _____________________

Address:_____________________________________________________________________________

* Originally developed for Geaorgia Strait Alliance after a MillWatch workshop