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Recycled Paper Sludge Leaching into Environment |
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Watchdog group says berms causing problems throughout Ontario
By Lishanti Caldera
Epoch Times Toronto Staff
Aug 09, 2007
When a 36,000 tonne mound of recycled paper sludge was deposited at Fenwick farm in Ontario a year ago, concerned neighbours were assured it was safe.
But the paper sludge berm produces an odour when wet that has been described as resembling vomit or sewage, and leaches chemicals into a nearby municipal drain during heavy rain. It also does nothing at all for the view.
There are more than 30 such berms across Ontario, in places such as
Oshawa, Orillia, Flamborough, Port Colborne and Peterborough. The
sludge, which is mixed with other products, is used as berms on farms
and at gun clubs to create sound barriers. It is also used as
fertilizer.
The communities where berms are located are concerned about the lack of
research regarding the effect the various chemicals in the paper sludge
have on ground water, the environment and people's health, says Deb
Vice, co-chair of Protect the Ridges, an Oshawa community group
advocating for the safe disposal of paper sludge.
"Once those trucks roll into your community you have no idea how
helpless you feel," says Vice. "The people of Ontario should not be
made to feel victims of industry. We should be protecting everything we
have in Ontario—our water and our farmlands—and that should be our
priority."
Paper sludge is an end product of the paper making process from
recycled paper. Once the pulp is taken out, what remains is paper
sludge or biomass, which is laced with inks, dyes, clays and glues, as
well as whatever chemicals are used in the recovery process.
In 2004, a 70,000 tonne berm built in an environmentally sensitive area
near Hamilton was ordered removed when it was proven that leakage from
it was contaminating the surrounding environment.
Protect the Ridges is pushing for the Ontario Ministry of Environment
(MOE) to regulate the disposal of paper sludge and classify it as waste.
"We want the Ministry to tighten the regulations around it so that
people know that when this material comes rolling in truckload after
truckload into their community, they know that it is being monitored
and watched by the Ministry of the Environment," says Vice.
Currently, the companies that produce the sludge are responsible for
testing and monitoring the berms, which Vice says is like "letting the
fox watch the hen house."
Starting in 1991, paper sludge was given to farmers for use on their
farms with MOE supervision. But many farmers didn't find it beneficial
and quit using it. In 1999 the industry came up with a solution: they
mixed paper sludge with sand and marketed it under the name Sound-Sorb.
They also mixed it with fertilizers and called it Nitro-Sorb.
Once the sludge is mixed with sand or fertiliser, it is no longer
classified as "waste;" it becomes a "product" and is therefore exempt
from regulations and monitoring by MOE.
Vice says this exemption is a concern on many levels, including the
fact that any kind of waste matter can be legally mixed into the
sludge. Another concern is that the recycled paper does not all come
from Ontario's blue boxes; over 70 per cent of it is imported, and it
is unknown what kind of inks are used in the imported paper.
While MOE did not return calls requesting comment by press time, its
website states that in response to public concerns regarding berms
built of Sound-Sorb, the ministry tested a berm in 2002 for over 90
different elements and compounds.
"With the exception of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), toluene,
free cyanide and chloride, all parameters measured were present in
concentrations lower than those found in soils in Ontario that have not
been subject to contamination by commercial or industrial activity,"
said MOE.
The ministry stated that the risks to human and environmental health
associated with the TPH levels in the berm were "currently being
addressed" in a Site Specific Risk Assessment.
In a 2003 Annual Report, the Ontario Environment Commissioner, Gord
Miller, stated that MOE has "mishandled the Sound-Sorb issue repeatedly
since 1999, when questions first arose about the status of this
material." "This is an issue I've talked about for five or six years.
It's a mystery to me why the ministry doesn't regulate [Sound-Sorb] as
it does other industrial wastes," stated the commissioner in a 2006
report. In Ontario, Atlantic Packaging and Abitibi-Consolidated are the
two main producers of paper sludge. Atlantic Packaging, with plants in
Whitby and Scarborough, is estimated to produce 700 tonnes of paper
sludge a day, 365 days a year.
All that waste has to go somewhere. Debbie Johnston, spokesperson for
Abitibi Consolidated, says re-using the waste keeps it out of the
landfill.
"We believe that we give value to a waste through a practice of land
application that allows it to be utilized as a fertilizer, and as a
fuel in boilers located at our facilities. Previously this material had
been land-filled. It is now a valuable product that is called biomass"
British Columbia is also having its problems with paper sludge
disposal. In 2005, the B.C. Ministry of Environment announced its
intention to allow landspreading of pulp mill sludge with no
requirement for permits and with minimal monitoring, according to a
report by Reach for the Unbleached published in the Watershed Sentinel.
However, the new Soil Amendment Code of Practice met with such "great
public concern" that it is now being reconsidered. Secretary of Reach
for the Unbleached, Tammy Morris, who lives near Catalyst Paper's mill
in Crofton, B.C., says she was disturbed to find that dredged sediment
from the "heavily industrially contaminated" Crofton harbour has been
classified as residential quality soil without having been tested.
"This is placed in the lime recaust waste area of the mill's landfill
which is approved for landspreading under the new code of practice,"
says Morris.
Morris says CBC Radio has been reporting on the landspreading code of
practice, and concerns are being voiced by everyone from local
residents to organic farmers to First Nations, who are worried about
the lack of consultation regarding landspreading on Crown Lands that
may be under treaty negotiations.
"There are no provisions in the code to inform neighbours until after the fact," she says.
Each year, B.C. pulp and paper mills create over half a million tonnes
of sludge from secondary treatment plants, power boiler ash, chemical
processing, waste fibre, sawmills, and other sources, according to
Morris.
The sludge is disposed of by burning it in power boilers (when mixed
with salty hog fuel, coal, tires, demo waste, etc), as landfill on mill
property, as landspread on agricultural and forest land, and as a "soil
amendment" product for turf. Vice hopes to see the day when the
technology is developed to "incinerate the waste and use the energy."
In the meantime, she wants the government to manage and regulate the
sludge as it would any other waste "rather than using rural Ontario as
an unregulated dumping ground for industry."
Epoch Times online
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