USW Paper Workers Challenge “Digital Only” Green Claims

Irving Pulp & Paper, Limited will invest over $150 million in environmental improvements at the Saint John mill. “The construction of this new on-site facility using world class technology will help us continue to achieve our long-term environmental objectives by substantially improving water quality while reducing water consumption by up to 50 percent,” said Mark Mosher, Vice President of Pulp & Paper. “We have been operating at the west side location since 1946, so we value the feedback of our neighbours in the community and we look forward to hearing from them through this process.” This project will modernize the current water treatment being done in the mill to remove, re-use and recycle materials created during the pulping process which need to be treated in an environmentally friendly manner. It will also help Irving Pulp & Paper to comply with a new enforcement approach to federal regulations and reduce the water currently being sourced from Spruce Lake by up to 50 percent.

Those figures get worse for millennials – the demographic driving the boom in food delivery ­– with 66% of 18-24 year olds not realising that food packaging tainted with food or an excess of grease can’t be put into the recycling bin (against 34% who knew). Considering that Domino’s sold over half a million pizzas in just one night last December, that’s potentially a lot of cardboard that cannot be recycled. According to the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI), empty pizza boxes are fully recyclable, as long as there are no food residues. They add that if more than 50% of the packaging is heavily stained, it may be better suited for other options. Similarly, The Recycling Association say that official guidelines allows stained pizza boxes to be collected and recycled via the municipal waste stream, but food particles are not permissible. To help the problem, Deliveroo have produced 100,000 biodegradable greaseproof paper inserts for the pizza restaurants that use its service. These inserts will catch any food left from the pizza and prevent excess amounts of grease soaking into the base of the box. Click Read More below for additional detail.

SCA is actively involved in efforts to save the endangered ortolan bunting, which thrives in clearcut areas. It hopes to make it easier for the bird to find food by digging large hollows in areas where the ortolan has been sighted. Last autumn, SCA’s nature conservation experts joined county administrative boards and a few ornithologists to visit forests in Sundsvall where the ortolan bunting had been sighted. The aim was to find possible measures to create favorable conditions by providing more food for the bunting and its young. One idea was to dig large patches of mineral soil of about one quarter of a square meter to reveal the topsoil. The ortolan seems to thrive in all types of clearcuts where the topsoil has been disturbed by scarification, for example, because bare ground in a protected location makes it easy for them to find insects when feeding their young. Click Read More below for additional information.