M-real uses annually some two million tonnes of chemical pulp, chemi-thermo-mechanical pulp and recovered fibre. In 2008, nearly all the pulp came from our own or Metsä-Botnia’s mills and only 0.1 million tonnes was bought from external suppliers. The external sources must operate in strict compliance with the legislation and report to us annually on the origin of their wood, the share of certified wood and other key environmental data.
Chemical pulp
In chemical pulp production, the cellulose fibres are separated from lignin by cooking wood chips in boilers. The separated lignin (black liquor) is then incinerated to produce energy and the chemicals are recovered in a recovery boiler. Chemical pulping is practically self-sufficient as far as energy usage is concerned.
In the bleaching process, lignin residuals are removed to prevent the fibres from yellowing in the paper or board product. The prevailing bleaching method is the elemental chlorine-free (ECF) process which uses chlorine dioxide, alkali, peroxide and oxygen. In some cases, other bleaching chemicals, like ozone, can be used in minor amounts.
Most of the chemical pulp used by M-real is ECF bleached pulp. From an environmental impact’s point of view, there are no differences between modern ECF and TCF pulp plants.
Mechanical pulp
Mechanical pulp is produced by grinding logs or refining wood chips. After the washing phases, the pulp is bleached with hydrogen peroxide and/or dithionite depending on the required brightness of the pulp. From an environmental point of view, mechanical pulping needs more electricity than chemical pulping, but gives a better yield, consumes less water and produces less effluent. Mechanical pulp is normally used with chemical pulp for packaging boards together to make them stiff and opaque.
We produce bleached chemi-thermomechanical pulp (BCTMP) at the Joutseno and Kaskinen mills in Finland. This pulp is used in the production of high quality board and paper. BCTMP has been a focus of M-real's R&D work for many years. Both mills have been designed and built using very advanced environmental technology and thus their environmental impacts are minimal.
Recovered fibre
M-real’s approach to recycled fibre is holistic - this means that we manage our responsibility from forest to recycling and the reuse of wood fibres. M-real uses high-quality raw material from sustainably managed forests; encourages the collection of used paper and board; and produces high-quality products from recovered paper where it makes economic and environmental sense. To keep the fibre recycling process going, a continuous supply of fresh fibre will always be required.
M-real uses recovered fibre in its fine paper production in its Alizay mill in France. To reduce emissions, recovered paper is collected from large population centres close to the recycling plant. This minimises transport and the use of fossil fuels. The central location of Alizay allows convenient access to the recycled raw material. As we believe in ‘like for like’ recycling, we utilise high quality fibres, mostly from offices and printers, to manufacture our high quality papers which are virtually indistinguishable from their virgin fibre based counterparts. Recycling in this manner ensures that the fibres most suitable for each particular product are used.
M-real uses some 180,000 tonnes of recycled fibre annually in Evolve, Logic and Modo Papers ranges. More information can be found at the Evolve product web page as well as in our Paper Profiles.