CLEAN WATER FOR THE BENEFIT OF NATURE Protecting the environment and bodies of water in paper production might seem to be a contradiction in terms The primary argu ment of environmentalists is that the waste water can only be purified to a limited extent from auxiliary and additive substances add ed during paper production and that these substances subsequently enter rivers and negatively affect soil fertility for example 1 The German paper industry uses some 250 million cubic metres of fresh water each year 72 of this comes from surface waters and 27 from wells or springs Only 1 is taken from the local drinking water supply In Germany extraction and return of water to the natural environment are subject to strict regulations and associated with costs The water has to be treated and most of Germany s federal states also charge fees for water extraction The legal basis for this is the EU Water Framework Directive which also sets state of the art standards for waste water treatment Use of water is therefore both an environmental as well as an economic issue for the paper industry Accordingly processes are being optimised and cycles are becoming closed loop to an ever greater extent The specific amount of waste water per kilogramme of paper which is commonly used as a measure of water consumption in the paper industry was still close to 50 litres in the 1970s Today it is 8 6 litres per kilogramme of paper Paper association DIE PAPIERINDUSTRIE e V collects this data regularly together with the Paper Technology Foundation 2 CARL MACHER WATER CONSUMPTION FAR BELOW THE INDUSTRY AVERAGE Carl Macher paper mill shows that things can be done even better The core board at the paper mill in Brunnenthal is exclusively produced from the secondary raw material of waste paper The paper mill has a water cycle that has nearly become closed loop through the use of its own waste water treatment plant meaning that fresh water consumption is extraordinarily low even when compared to the rest of the industry The mill obtains most of the surface water it needs from the adjacent river Saale Each year Carl Macher extracts some 560 000 m3 of water from the river 1 NABU https www nabu de umwelt und ressourcen ressourcenschonung papier 30384 html 2 Die Papierindustrie e V https www papierfakten de papierfakten papier und wasser 13

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