Development & Aid, Environment, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

ENVIRONMENT: Spotlight Turns to Argentina’s Pulp Mills

Marcela Valente* - Tierramérica

BUENOS AIRES, May 26 2006 (IPS) - The approximately 30 factories producing pulp and paper in Argentina have had a heavy environmental impact, and are a seemingly endless source of conflict. With challenges simmering against the construction of two large pulp mills in neighbouring Uruguay, the Argentine companies are on the defensive.

The entire sector in Argentina produces some 900,000 tonnes of pulp annually, based on different technologies and raw materials. The largest and most questioned mills are located on the Paraná River, in the northeast.

Since March, Paraguay has filed suit against Argentina for the alleged lack of wastewater treatment by the pulp mills Alto Paraná, Celulosa Puerto Piray and Benfide, in the northeastern province of Misiones, on their shared border.

Paraguay says the Argentine companies discharge chemical waste into the Paraná, but Argentina has yet to respond to the complaint of the neighbouring country’s Foreign Ministry.

Alfredo Molinas, environment minister of Paraguay, said on May 12 that his country will insist that the problem “be resolved through diplomacy, without the need to escalate to a dispute.”

The environmental watchdog group Greenpeace will issue a report at the end of the month about the paper and pulp industry in Argentina, where, it says, no company in that sector sets a positive example, but rather all pose problems.

Some pollute the surroundings because they use chlorine in the bleaching process, “and those that don’t use it have problems in treatment of discharge – in other words, in all cases adjustments have to be made,” Juan Carlos Villalonga, director of Greenpeace-Argentina, told Tierramérica.

The Argentine Association of Pulp and Paper Producers, which represents more than 90 percent of the industry, signed an agreement May 10 with the Environment Secretariat for a clean production programme and business competition aimed at preventing the pollution associated with that industry.

“The Argentine companies are aware of the need to take care of the environment, and for some time have invested in this, but they have only been isolated actions. Now we are going to coordinate efforts,” association president Rafael Gaviola told Tierramérica.

Greenpeace’s Villalonga says the agreement is good news. “Now they need to set a timeline for achieving each of the goals, because that is what pushes the companies to move: the obligation to comply,” he said.

As it stands, the agreement is voluntary and commits the signatories to a series of objectives. “The idea is to show the companies that instead of throwing away inputs or generating waste, it would benefit them to be efficient in process management,” Victoria Beláustegui, clean production coordinator for the Environment Secretariat, said in a Tierramérica interview.

Public attention to the local pulp industry increased in the wake of the conflict surrounding the construction of two paper pulp mills by the Finnish firm Botnia and the Spanish company ENCE on the Uruguayan side of the border river shared with Argentina. The biggest protests against the potential contamination of the Uruguay River have been held in the Argentine city of Gualeguaychú. But the city’s neighbours in Uruguay defend the two plants as a source of jobs. The factories will produce around 1.5 million tonnes annually for export.

Although association chief Gaviola affirms that the Argentine mills invested some 35 million dollars between 2001 and 2006 “in environmental improvements alone,” there are 12 companies involved in disputes. One is Alto Paraná, which produces 350,000 tonnes of pulp paste each year.

“The technology that Alto Paraná uses is the same that Botnia will use,” said Gaviola, in reference to the “elemental chlorine free” (ECF) technology. Nevertheless, the residents in the area argue that the Misiones Ministry of Ecology does not provide reports on tests of the Paraná River.

In the late 1990s, Greenpeace filed a lawsuit against Celulosa Argentina, located downstream on the same river, in the eastern province of Santa Fe, for pollution since 1929. “The lawsuit was not successful,” said Villalonga.

Greenpeace and the Ecologist Workshop of Rosario provided water samples with contaminants – many of them persistent pollutants – associated with the use of chlorine. Celulosa Argentina denies using the chemical in its production, but will not say what it does use. Santa Fe residents say they have been requesting information from the company that floods the area with a strong odour of rotten eggs.

The paper company Papelera del Tucumán, in the northeastern Argentine province of the same name, was the only one whose executives were indicted, following a report from provincial authorities in early 2003.

In March, government regulations were tightened in Buenos Aires province, where preventative shutdowns were carried out against Papelera Massuh and Papelera Baradero for failures in treatment of wastewater discharge.

“The pulp paste companies have challenges, as do other sectors where we are pursuing clean production processes. Some are improving a great deal, while others need consulting in order to advance,” said ministry official Beláustegui.

“Everyone has to improve in one key sector, which is the use of water,” she said.

(*Originally published May 20 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)