CLEAN PRODUCTION

Due in large part to the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and other government regulations, the paper industry has improved its pollution record. However, the pulp and paper industry is the single largest consumer of water used in industrial activities in economically advantaged countries and is the third greatest industrial greenhouse gas emitter, after the chemical and steel industries. Additionally, in the U.S., the pulp and paper industry has one of the highest pollution intensities, or emissions per value of output, of the 74 industrial sectors measured by the Toxic Release Inventory.

The Environmental Paper Network is working to advance innovations in cleaner production through encouraging the manufacturers to:

• Minimize and over time eliminate harmful pulp mill discharges and the use of chlorine and chlorine compounds for bleaching through the introduction of advanced pulping and bleaching technologies (e.g., extended and oxygen-based delignification, maximal effluent recovery and the use of non chlorine-based bleaching chemicals
• Design all newly-constructed mills to utilize these advanced chlorine-free pulping and
  bleaching technologies in order to achieve effluent-free mills.