The papermaking process requires the use of large quantities of water, since the paper pulp is made up of 99% water and 1% fibres.
The papermaking process requires the use of large quantities of water, since the paper pulp is made up of 99% water and 1% fibres.
Since our second paper machine was commissioned in 1999, we have reduced our water consumption per tonne of paper by optimising our manufacturing processes. We are one of the best-performing paper mills in this area.
Our water supply sources are:
For sanitation and domestic water needs, we use drinking water from the Golbey network.
Raw water is pumped from a gravel pit less than 1 km from our site. This gravel pit is mainly fed by the river table that flows through it and by the local river (Moselle). The water is filtered and then stored on site in a 4,000 m3 silo before being used in the various workshops.
The firefighting system is supplied by the raw water network. The site has 3,400 m3 of water ready at all times to supply the fire suppression system.
As part of our diversification, the volumes withdrawn will not change, despite the increase in the volume of paper produced.
This performance is possible thanks to a €10 million investment to strengthen filtration capacity for suspended matter and to install two additional disc filtration units. This investment increases the internal water recycling capacity from 4,500 to 11,200 m3/day.
To take into account the impact of climate change on the availability of surface water, especially in a context of increasing drought alerts, we have set up an action plan to reduce our water consumption throughout our process.
To limit our discharges, our mill relies on its wastewater treatment plant, which can treat 20,000 m3 of water per day.
The quality of our water discharges is continuously measured by sensors and monitored daily in our laboratory. Accredited external bodies carry out analyses on additional parameters and validate the compliance of our internal controls.
Twice a year, a specialist body measures the ecological status of the water in the local river (Moselle) – upstream and downstream of our mill. The result are published using a “normalised global biological index”, which shows that our discharges have no impact and are compliant, despite increasingly strict limits.
