Veracel has announced its best result, breaking the internal record in reducing the use of water. The marker was 23.6 cubic meters of water for each ton of pulp produced. Previously, the best annual mark had been 25 cubic meters for each one ton produced. This new marker is the result of a project developed by the company’s Environmental Control area. With the improvement of the processes registered in the last year, there was a 5.6% reduction in the specific use of water in the industrial area.

The targets were set to reduce the specific water use of the plant by 10% by 2020, with the goal of achieving less than 22.5 cubic meters of water per ton of pulp. By 2019, the goal of water use is 23 cubic meters / ton.

The consumption reduction initiatives adopted have had a very low cost for the company and have brought a significant financial return on water savings. The solutions to improve natural resource management in Veracel’s industrial processes focused on the elimination of water transfers from the tanks and the reuse of sealing water from the pumps. Level control logics were implemented in the tanks, alarms were created in the control panels, small structural modifications were made to the pipes and tools were developed for monitoring and daily management of water use.

In addition to the action plan to reduce water use, the company has a monitoring routine of the Jequitinhonha River, from which water is collected for its operations. In this process, the quality of the water resource is evaluated periodically, before and after the point of release of treated effluents.

Source: Ibá