came into existence.

In the process known as kraft
pulping, which is the most com-
monly-used pulping method in the
world, between one and three
kilograms of sulphur dioxide are
released into the air for every
tonne of pulp created.

Sulphur dioxide just happens to
be one of the main contributors to
acid rain, which might explain
how Ronald Reagan got the idea
in his head that acid rain was
caused by trees.

The cellulose fibres that are lost
in the process are eventually
discharged along with the waste
water. These build up as fibre
beds which use up oxygen as they
decay, suffocating any forms of
life unfortunate enough to wander
near the outfall pipe.

L, wasn’t until 1985
that scientists finally
proved conclusively that
the chlorine bleaching of
kraft pulp creates
dioxins, which are the
most powerful known
chemical poisons.’’

De

There are two other side-effects
of kraft pulping.

The aluminum salt used to
purify incoming water is highly
toxic to certain fish, salmon in
particular. Accidental spills, which
happen with appalling frequency,
devastate downstream aquatic life.
And the dark brown pulp that is
produced has to be bleached
heavily to make the paper white.

This is where the super-
poisonous dioxins come in. Be-
tween 50 and 80 kilograms of
chlorine gas are used to produce #
tonne of bleached kraft paper.
Roughly £0 per cent of the chlo-
rine is discharged into the en-
vironment from the mill.

This effluent can contain as
many as 1,000 toxic chlorinated
organic compounds, even though
only 300 of them have been iden-
tified.

The resulting witch's brew is
impossible to describe for the
simple reason that we don’t even
have labels for all the toxins in-
volved. Generally we lump them
together under the name
organochlorines.

Consider just a few of them:

’ There’s bromodichloromethane,
chlorofurane, chloropropenal,
tetrachloroacetone,
tetrachloropropane, tichloroethane
and pentachloropropane, all of
which cause genetic deformities.

And then there's
dichloroethane, benzene, toluene,
trichloroethane and
trichlorephenol, all of which cause
cancer,

And that’s just the beginning of
the list.

What we do know is that the
resulling discharges go directly in-
to rivers. lakes and oceans.

4 - Wednesday, June 20, 1990 - North Shore News

NORTH VANCOUVER 986-0388

Bos

HUNTER
° Eco-Logic ®

TODAY WE continue our exploration of the ecological
horror story of how the newsprint you're reading this on

Since the average kraft mill
produces between 600 and 1,000
tonnes of pulp per day, it has
been estimated that between 30
and 80 tonnes of organochlorines
are likewise produced every day.

As the recently-published
Greenpeace Guide to Paper points
out, putting these numbers into a
global perspective, we see thai 4.5
million tonnes of chlorine are used
in a single year to bleach paper.

The organochlorines very
seldom occur naturally, which
might explain why they are so
long-lived once released into the
environment.

Such famous chemicals as DDT
and PCBs are organochlorines, by
the way. How happy would we be
if we learned that these substances
were involved in the manufacture
of paper?

Not very. Yet we continue to
tolerate these other multisyllabic
compounds for the simple reason
that we do not really appreciate
their toxicity (let alone the fact
that few of us could pronounce
the names if we tried).

Fish are the first victims of pulp
mill effluent. Their reproductive
ability is harmed. Their livers and
immune systems are damaged.
Skeletal abnormalities in the of f-
spring are common.

It wasn’t until 1985 that scien-
tists finally proved conclusively
that the chlorine bleaching of
kraft pulp creates dioxins, which
are the most powerful known
chemical poisons.

They are highly carcinogenic
and have an equally high tendency
to remain in the bodies of animals
and fish — and people — who in-
gest the stuff,

The logical implication of this
finding is that dioxin, to be found
in bleached paper. is therefore
contaminating everything from
sanitary products, facial tissue and
kitchen towels to coffee filters and
copying paper.

New Zealand recently banned
the use of milk products packaged
in bleached paper cartons for that
very reason.

informants in Ottawa advise me
that the federal government has
just completed a study of the
dioxins to be found in household
products, which revealed an
astonishingly high level of across-
the-board contamination — so
high, in fact, that the feds are
thinking of setting ‘‘standards"’
above which dioxins will not be
allowed to go.

The Catch 22 is that the stand-
ards will be set at a level well
above the levels that have been
detected, so that the pulp and
paper industry will ov able to say
they are operating within a margin
of health safety.

[ hate to sound cynical, but this
is precisely what | expect Ouawa

to do, since any serious action to
reduce dioxins in the pulp and
paper industry would be, as the
economists say, “disruptive.”"

Remember, you read it here
first. On bleached paper, fm

afraid.

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