puls mills

[philosopher]

HI, I want to know if there in Finland you have ear about the paper mild that
botnia is building in Uruguay. The complex y really big, is amasing. The Chimney is finish and mesures 120 meters. The main building will mesure 105 meters tall. I would like to know more about these company.

[satama]

Well, I vaguely remember hearding about the protests.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4849654.stm
A Finnish firm has announced it will halt construction of a controversial pulp mill in Uruguay for 90 days because of environmental concerns.
The plant is one of two planned mills on the Uruguayan side of a river shared with Argentina.

Local Argentines say the factories will pollute the river and deter tourism.
But thousands of Uruguayans have expressed support for the project, which they insist is safe and would bring much-needed jobs to the country.
The Finnish company Botnia said it would temporarily halt construction work to give Argentina and Uruguay time to debate the issue.

Last week, environmental activists in the Argentine town of Gualeguaychu ended a seven-week blockade of two border crossings.
The decision came after the governments in Buenos Aires and Montevideo agreed to put on hold the building of the mills until an independent environmental study was completed.

The conflict has strained relations between the two normally friendly countries.

Argentina threatened to take Uruguay to the International Court of Justice in The Hague saying its neighbour had broken international treaties over the management of the river.

But the government in Montevideo dismissed the claim.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=29632

The Uruguayan government and the foreign companies involved have repeatedly stressed that the Uruguayan mills will be equipped with more modern, less polluting technology.

In fact, both Botnia and ENCE are planning to use a so-called elemental chlorine free (ECF) bleaching process in their plants. While not as harmful as older technologies, ECF bleaching still involves the use of chlorine dioxide, leading to the emission of dioxins and furans, which are not only harmful to human health, but can also spread over long distances and persist for years or even decades.

There is, however, a newer, cleaner bleaching process, known as totally chlorine free (TCF), which produces no dioxins whatsoever. While TCF technology is now being required in pulp mills in the European Union, the European companies will not be using it in their Uruguayan operations.

The last comment is a bit misleading since Botnia still does have ECF pulp mills in Finland.

Joutseno mill : 630,000 t/a of ECF bleached softwood pulp
http://www.paperloop.com/images/magazine/ppi_mag/0208/ppi3_2.jpg

Äänekoski mill : 500,000 t/a of ECF bleached softwood pulp

Kaskinen mill : 450,000 t/a of ECF- and TCF bleached hardwood pulp



If you want to know something about this company then you'd naturally better go to their site (available in spanish), rather than ask here since I somewhat doubt that many of us here work for Botnia. :wink2:
http://www.metsabotnia.com/es/default.asp?path=284

[Joka]

Are they going to cut down rainforrest?
Not that I'm a tree hugging hippie in particular, but there's plenty of woods on earth, why do they have to go to the rainforrest?
Maybe I'm brainwashed by enviromental groups though :)

[satama]

They're going to use eucalyptus trees. Rainforests trees are pretty useless for pulp mills as they would have to sort out short-fibre trees from the long-fibre trees. That's why paper/pulp companies grow their own trees in plantations.

[philosopher]

Don't worry about the protesters, they are ignorante people who is being manipulated by corrupt politician and business mans (specially turism and paper area). The problem is that Botnia where first in Argentina. The provincial autorities want a return (money under the table) + a direct participation in the company when she stats the operations. So the finnish investors flew that country and decided to invest in Uruguay and since that moment this problem starts. They are jalous, they are bad losers.The blocus make us loss millions.
Both "controvertial plants" AREN'T controvertial because they are completily legal. They haven't violeted any law. Those protests have nothing to do with ecology, the main problem is political that's it. But fortunately, our gouvernement decided t stop the negociation with Argentina (the argentinian autorities make faild the two last reunions on purpose) and this circus is going to end in The Hague. Even if bbotnia decided to stop the construction the argentinian autorities will invent others excuses in last moment to fail the reunion. Ex: ence even if they decided o stop the construction the stll work in other activities like roads ald land preparation for the site.

[designwise]

This story made big news in south america... it was all over the Argentinian and Brazilian papers as well.

[philosopher]

As I said, the main problem is political and economic. Do you know why? because the argentinian protesters decided to ssupend their blocus on 21 march when summer end and falls starts. Also, the actual blocus is not for anindeterminated period. It will end after easter. Is obious.
Me, I am really proud that Fnland has choose us to invest is puls mills. I know that Finland is leader in environnement protection.
By the way, stora enso has also decided to open another pulp mill in Uruguay.
It would by bigger than botnia's one.

[philosopher]

By the way this is wath it looks like: http://www.tecsa.cl/img_obra2006/Botnia%20Punta%20del%20Este2.jpg

And the rest of the proyect
http://www.tecsa.cl/img_obra2006/Botnia1.JPG

Is really amazing.