An Overview of Environmental Impacts of Pulp and Paper Mill Effluents

Many efforts have been made to reduce the influence on aquatic organisms by pulp and paper mill effluents. In Scandinavia the new assessment program has been started to evaluate a current state of the biological impact since 1997. Also, in Canada the Aquatic Environmental Effect Monitoring has been carried out in the second phase of the program (EEM Cycle 2).Since 1996 Japan Pulp and Paper Research Institute (JPRI) has studied the effects of the effluents from 20 mills in Japan. The biological and chemical characterization confirmed that any effluent had no acute toxicity, however, the chronic toxicities, especially the effects on the reproduction of Ceriodaphnia dubia, were found to vary substantially with the mill processes. Such biological effects of the mill effluents did not depend on AOX, but the total organic compounds indicating as COD/BOD.The Toxicity Identification Evaluation (TIE), the induction of Mixed Function Oxygenases (MFO), and the bioaccumulation of EOX were investigated to elucidate the environmental affection of Japanese pulp and paper mill effluent.