Treading Lightly: Check out Sappi's Sustainability Report to See How Our Water Return is Over 90%, Creating a Minimal Footprint
All pulp and paper mills in North America use and treat water in accordance with comprehensive environmental permits.
Our North American mills use only surface water sources (rivers and lakes) and return treated water to the same primary source. (At Cloquet we return the water to a publicly owned treatment facility which then returns to Lake Superior.) Our water return is over 90 percent of intake, creating a minimal water footprint. Water that is “consumed” in our operations is primarily that which is lost through evaporation to the atmosphere. While our water usage was up slightly in 2013, our water quality indicators (BOD and TSS) remained flat or improved as reflected below.
Read the full SFPNA Sustainability Report 2013 by downloading an online PDF version directly from our website here or for more on sustainability, check out our eQ microsite at: http://www.na.sappi.com/eQ/index.html
