97/00625 Environmental life cycle assessment of some new methods for producing bleached pulps from Australian eucalypt woods

Abstract

Bleached eucalypt kraft pulps manufactured in prospective Australian greenfield pulp mills with elemental chlorine free (ECF) and totally chlorine free (TCF) bleaching sequences were compared using life cycle assessment (LCA). The comparison was restricted to two wood resources from different geographical areas : plantation wood from Western Australia and mature wood from Northern Tasmania. The starting point of the study was the tree harvesting stage and the end point was dried pulp. The main differences between the cases were a result of the different pulp yields of mature and plantation wood. In the Tasmanian mature wood case, more wood and slightly more fossil fuel were needed, but more power was available for external use than in the Western Australian plantation case. The fossil fuel requirement was mainly for transport and wood harvesting. The pulp mills produced more effluent, emissions to air and solid waste than the wood harvesting or transport. However the contribution of the latter activity to certain air emissions and fossil fuel consumption was appreciable. There were minor differences between the ECF and TCF cases for each wood resource.