Pollution Prevention

Environmental releases due to the manufacturing process are down 63.4 percent during the eight-year period, 1992-2000.

Pollution Prevention Partnership

The Pollution Prevention Partnership (P3) between the Wisconsin pulp and paper industry and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) is now in its seventh year.

This remarkable program features voluntary reductions in environmental releases...a willingness by one of the state's largest industries to do something "above and beyond" what is required to help improve our quality of life.

The success of P3 is a tribute to the nearly 53,000 men and women who comprise the state's paper industry. It is also a testimonial for voluntary, cooperative programs between the private and public sectors.

Much too often suspicion and conflict permeate relations between the private and public sectors on environmental issues. P3 represents a "new and better way of doing business."

P3 is a massive undertaking as it involves 25 firms and 42 facilities. The program is designed to find cost-effective ways to reduce potentially harmful byproducts from the paper industry's manufacturing process. The program encompasses air emissions, wastewater discharges, and solid/hazardous wastes.

The Pollution Prevention Partnership, introduced in mid-1993, also includes a unique feature — voluntary reduction goals for seven "target" substances. The target substances are chlorine, chloroform, formaldehyde, hydrogen sulfide, methanol, phosphorus and xylene.

P3 is coordinated by the Wisconsin Paper Council, the industry's trade association, in cooperation with the WDNR.

Latest data compiled under P3 reveals an impressive record of accomplishment and environmental stewardship.

Environmental releases due to the manufacturing process, for example, are down nearly sixty percent during the eight-year period, 1992-2000.

That's quite an accomplishment for an industry that is already in compliance with state and federal regulations.

In 1996, the paper industry introduced a companion program to P3, a sustainable forestry initiative called the Green Guarantee. The Green Guarantee is designed to assure healthy forests not only for today, but for future generations as well. In 1999, the paper industry has introduced another new environmental initiative, the "next generation" in pollution prevention — an industrywide Environmental Management System, the WPC EMS.

Click on a link below to explore more about the Pollution Prevention Partnership (P3)!