Producers defend pulp technology

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Pulp and Paper Association yesterday defended technology still in use by its members which has come under attack by an Australian environmental expert who has deemed it hazardous.

Kahar Haryopuspito, the association's executive director, said the waste from pulp mills using chlorine-dioxide or element chlorine-free (ECF) technology is far less dangerous than indicated by Robert Cartmel.

Cartmel, a former Greenpeace Australia activist, said in Jakarta on Tuesday that the chlorine dioxide used by pulp and paper plants in Indonesia is toxic and dangerous to humans and animals which use rivers where the pulp plants discharge their waste.

Cartmel said that if Indonesia does not change its pulp mills over to totally chlorine-free (TCF) technology, it will suffer large environmental disasters.

Kahar told The Jakarta Post yesterday that mills using the ECF technology only result in O.3 ppm of absorbable organic halogen (AOX) entering waste water.

He added that the maximum tolerable level is 1ppm of AOX. Higher levels are considered toxic and may lead to cancer in humans.

"Some researchers are even suggesting that the danger level is actually 2 ppm," he said. "So an ECF mill's waste is way below the level that could cause cancer."

"If ECF is not hazardous why use TCF. The equipment required for a TCF mill, as well as the production process, are more expensive than ECF mills," Kahar said. "A TCF mill requires ozone (O3) for its bleaching process which is costly to obtain."

The June 1995 edition of Papermaker, the industry's magazine published in Australia, said that there are 68 mills worldwide that use the TCF technology. The article said the 68 TCF pulp mills account for only 7 percent of the world market share.

Kahar said environmentalists like Greenpeace want the mills to use TCF technology. "But Greenpeace sometimes oversee the economic side of it."

On another issue, the association executive also refuted earlier press reports suggesting that a number of new pulp mills in Sumatra and Kalimantan would produce newsprint to make up for current market shortages. "The proposed Bob Hasan and Prayogo Pangestu mills will process short-fiber materials for HVS paper."

He said the newsprint crisis has been caused by shortage in long-fiber material used for newsprint."The most realistic solution to the crisis is to open the local market to imported paper," he said. (06)