UPM-Biofore-Magazine-1-2017-ENG

TEXT SAARA TÖYSSY   PHOTOGRAPHY BSAG, JANNE LEHTINEN, UPM

Sonja Ahvenainen found her calling in environmental technology. In her free time, she enjoys sports and spending time outdoors with active students from her university. She has also travelled extensively during her studies. A student exchange period in steamy Bangkok was a welcome break from the chilly Finnish climate. During her thesis project, Ahvenainen’s instructors at UPM are Corinne Le Ny-Heinonen, Manager, Environmental Support, and Marjukka Joutsimo, Senior Researcher. The project began with background work and drafting the written part of the thesis. The actual tests will last one or two weeks and will be performed at the UPM Kaukas mill this summer.

Corinne Le Ny-Heinonen and Sonja Ahvenainen

B y any standards, the forest industry is a major consumer of water. For decades, effluent treatment and efficient water consumption have been a major focus for the entire industry, not least for UPM. However, UPM is now taking a new leap forward by introducing recycled nutrients in its effluent treatment process, first in Finland, and then at all UPM locations. Finland has exceptionally abundant groundwater reserves of very high quality. However, the Baltic Sea surrounding Finland’s southern and western coast is badly polluted. This pollution is partly caused by nutrients that have been washed into the sea from agricultural land and industrial facilities over the past decades. The countries responsible for this pollution include Finland, the other Nordic countries, Russia and the Baltic countries. “The nitrogen in industrially produced nutrients is captured from the air in a process that consumes a great deal of energy. Phosphorus, in turn, is mined as phosphate rock, which is an exhaustible resource. The same phosphorus could also be used as a fertiliser in food production. If the nutrient side streams

from industrial and agricultural processes were recovered, they would not end up in the sea. Nutrient recovery is also a matter of sensible recycling: one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” says master’s student Sonja Ahvenainen , who will spend this spring and the coming summer performing nutrient recycling tests as part of her master’s thesis project. The tests will be performed at the UPMKaukas mill in Lappeenranta, Finland. Work is being done on several fronts to improve the state of the Baltic Sea. One of the leading organisations in the field is the Baltic Sea Action Group (BSAG), which encourages companies and farmers to commit to protecting the Baltic Sea. The foundation also offers a support network for projects promoting the mutual interests of the Baltic Sea marine environment, companies and farmers alike. UPMhas already made three commit ­ ments to the foundation. Two of them have already been fulfilled in separate projects. The first project involved research on the use of biochar mixed soil for filtering impurities fromwater washed from agricultural lands into

Instead of polluting the Baltic Sea, nutrients could be put to work in biological effluent treatment. UPM is among the frontrunners switching to recycled nutrients in its wastewater processing.

Trash becomes treasure through nutrient recycling

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