Weekend, Water & Effluent

Well this is my first weekend Blog. I debated with myself, should I stick to Monday - Friday Blogs, or really take up the challenge and take ‘daily’ literally. As you can see I have taken up the challenge.

The shopping has been done, breakfast served, pots in the dishwasher, back garden swept and the children are out playing with their friends. The house is quiet.

This is one of the problems of working from home. There is always the temptation to pop upstairs to the ‘office’ and look through the notes for the next course.

Whenever I run a course, I always make notes about the comments and feedback received throughout the day. I then amend my notes accordingly ready to be printed off for the next session. I like this idea of an evolving living set of notes, rather than a bulk print run which can be handed out for the next five or ten years. I feel rather like an artist, who is never quite satisfied with his painting, there are always improvements, modifications, or changes to be made.

The notes I was looking over this morning concerned ‘Water and Effluent’

By ‘water’ I am referring to both the incoming raw water and how it is managed before it is passed to the machines, and the water loops that we find in papermaking systems, along with the problems and techniques that are associated with managing loops.

Effluent is another story. Sadly the attitude of many mills is – We are here to make paper not to make effluent.

Consequently, the area is poorly managed, underfunded, and whoever is left to run it, becomes isolated and forgotten about. I once heard a comment (outside of the UK), that the effluent plant was a great place to put people that ‘didn't fit in'.

Luckily, we are becoming more enlightened about effluent. It can be turned into biogas, which can be burned and turned into electricity which can be sold to the national grid. This can become so profitable, papermaking becomes a secondary activity.

And never forget – If the effluent plant stops, so must production!