Pulp and paper plants in RI still hazardous

Pulp and paper plants in RI still hazardous

JAKARTA (JP): Although they have been converted from the use
of chlorine gas to organo-chlorine chemicals, all of Indonesia's
pulp and paper plants continue to use toxic substances for
bleaching, according to an Australian ecologist.

Although organo-chlorine chemicals are less toxic than
chlorine gas, they are still dangerous to humans and animals that
use the rivers polluted by the chemicals, Robert Cartmel, a
former Greenpeace campaigner, told reporters yesterday.

Organo-chlorine chemicals are used in the bleaching process in
pulp mills. The chemicals have been reported to cause cancer and
to damage the human reproduction process, according to the
London-based organization Greenpeace.

Cartmel, who spent 10 years with Greenpeace Australia, said
that pulp and paper companies in Indonesia had continued to use
chlorine compounds on the basis that they were cheap and produced
good quality paper.

"Actually you cannot use these arguments because the quality
you get by using the Totally Chlorine-Free (TCF) is every bit as
good as the paper made using chlorine chemicals," he said at a
press conference held at the headquarters of the Indonesian Forum
for the Environment.

Cartmel displayed two paper samples, one produced in Indonesia
using chlorine chemicals and another made in Sweden using the
chlorine-free process, to prove his point.

"And in the overall calculations, the TCF mills could be
cheaper than mills using organo-chlorines," he said, adding that
the cost calculations included the ecological treatment the mills
should undertake.

The Totally Chlorine-Free process is already used by 57 pulp
and paper factories around the world, including Kimberly-Clark in
Australia and Aracruz in Brazil.

They use ozone (O3), oxygen (O2) and hydrogen-peroxide (H2O2)
and are closed-cycle mills which recycle the waste water from the
bleaching process so that there are no toxic effects on the
environment.

Cartmel said that a number of consultants were still
encouraging the government in Indonesia to use chlorine
chemicals.

Those consultants, which he refers as 'conservatives', see the
environmentally-safe methods as tomorrow's technology, he said.
"They just cannot take on a new idea," he said.

He said he also believed that there was collusion between the
petrochemical industry, which supplies the toxic substances, and
the pulp industry.

He said the Indonesian government should use the cleanest
technology available, adding that "anything less is second best."
(06)