Riocell nurtures environmental accomplishments

Environmental concerns have very much influenced operations at Riocell's pulp and paper mill in Guaiba, Brazil. Celso Foelkel, environmental and technical director, refers to it as a minimal environmental impact mill that's moving toward becoming a zero impact mill. In many cases, Riocell has developed simple methods to reduce or recycle 99.7% of the 15,000 tons/month of solid residue it generates. It uses composted mill waste to renourish the soil of its plantations, though most of the organic fertilizer produced is sold to local farmers for agricultural use. About half of the solid residue is converted to agricultural use, especially as organic fertilizers. Sawdust is used as fuel or as bedding for poultry. Another 40% goes to industrial uses such as cement manufacturing. The rest is used as fill for the recovery of mined areas. Event the garbage from the mill is sorted and 85% is recycled. A new concern for the Riocell mill is a move toward placing taxes on the use of natural resources such as water. That's prompted the mill to look into going a step beyond tertiary treatment. The Clean-Rio process makes use of sand-bed filtration and reverse osmosis. Settling with activated carbon might also workmore » well.« less