Pulp and paper manufacturing can be characterized as simply cooking on a giant scale. Ingredients are prepared, mixed, cooked and dried into sheets of kraft pulp—or rolls of newsprint.
That also means that there are enormous efforts made to reduce and reuse waste materials.
The majority of woodchips used are waste from sawmills. The residual wood from making dimensional lumber is chipped and sent to the mill to be used.
We use bark as fuel in our power boilers to generate electricity. We remove solids from our wastewater before it is returned back to the environment and we scrub solids out of our exhaust air.
Over the past 10 years Resolute Forest Products has spent millions to reduce our solid waste. We recover and reuse our kraft pulp chemicals. Even streams of our regular garbage is collected and sent off for recycling or composting.
The remaining solid wastes are sent off to landfill sites. But even this material is considered valuable for lining pits and for other beneficial uses.