Improving water recycling in Poland

In 2021, we increased the recycling of cooling water from a boiler at our Świecie mill. Initially, the flue gas fan motors’ cooling water was released via the sump to the sewage through an overflow channel. By installing a pump with a submersible sensor and using the existing pipeline to the cooling tower, about 40 m3/h of water on average is now returned and ready for further use. The overall saving is about 300,000 m3/year of fresh water.

We are committed to reducing water use and increasing water recycling in our operations. We carefully monitor the amount of water we withdraw by source and release back to the aquatic environment, and we report on water use as contact or non-contact water in manufacturing and energy generation.  

In 2021, specific contact water consumption of our pulp and paper mills in water-stressed areas slightly increased by 0.2% compared with the 2020 baseline. However, we could achieve some reduction in contact water consumption by successfully introducing several water-efficiency projects (e.g. the Świecie project outlined above).