Arkhangelsk PPM received an Integrated Environmental Permit (IEP). The document contains environmental protection requirements and standards to ensure an integrated reduction of the negative impact of production activities on the environment. Among other things, the permit contains technological standards, which are fundamentally new type of standards in Russia.
The list of facilities, that have a negative impact on the environment and have to receive an IEP at the first stage, was approved by order of the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia in 2018. This list includes 300 facilities of the largest enterprises in the country, whose contribution to the total emissions, discharges of pollutants in the Russian Federation is not less than 60%. The industrial site for the production of pulp, paper and board of Arkhangelsk Pulp and Paper Mill JSC is included in this list.
According to the Chief Ecologist of APPM Evgeniya Moskaluk, the mill was one of the first in the country that started to work on the IEP obtaining. An active development of the document postulates started in September 2016 during the business game on the IEP issuing at the site of Arkhangelsk PPM.
A working group was created at the mill to prepare materials for obtaining an IEP and outlined the necessary activities; a specialized company was involved to prepare the documents.
Evgeniya Moskaluk undelined that IEP will require from APPM to intensify the work in the ecology. One of the terms for IEP obtaining was the availability of the Environmental Efficiency Enhancement Program approved by the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia in February 2021.
The program includes more than 20 measures of environmental protection purposes. The preliminary costs for its financing amount to RUB 18.2 billion.
The implementation of all the measures of the EEEP will lead to a new ecological transformation of Arkhangelsk PPM. As a result of the planned upgrade, the mill plans to reduce the specific discharge of pollutants into the Northern Dvina River, measured in characteristic integral indices, by 45% - 55%.
