Preventing Wood Fiber Loss Improves Efficiency — and the Bottom Line
As published on the Domtar Newsroom
Most New Year’s resolutions are meant to improve some aspect of life. Here at Domtar, we’re making resolutions to improve our manufacturing operations. Two of our pulp and paper mills are actively working to reduce wood fiber loss and increase efficiency in 2019.
During the last half of 2018, our Nekoosa and Ashdown mills began to identify the causes of, and take action to reduce, the amount of good wood fiber lost to the sewer each day instead of being used for making paper — which is almost literally the equivalent of money going down the drain.
“One of our biggest sources of waste is good wood fiber,” says Dave Ulrich, Nekoosa environmental manager. “In total, it costs us about $500 for every ton of fiber we lose.”
Beyond the immediate costs of lost production, wood fiber loss causes additional issues at a mill’s effluent treatment plant, where the mill has to spend even more time and money to process the additional fiber and produce sludge that is provided to local farmers as a soil amendment.
