Producers defend pulp technology

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)