BTG helps customers to reduce water consumption
BTG’s consistency transmitters have helped Visy Paper Smithfield Mill to greatly reduce freshwater and effluent discharge costs. The mill is located in the suburbs of Sydney in Smithfield, New South Wales, Australia, and the water that the mill uses comes from the same source as the drinking water for the people of Sydney. The mill uses large volumes of freshwater, at a high cost, and also has to pay for the effluent it discharges back into the Sydney sewerage system. If the consistency of the discharged effluent is more than 200 ppm or 0.02% suspended solids, the mill has to pay penalty fees. So everything is done to avoid exceeding the limits, both saving the mill money and benefiting the environment.
The mill produces high performance packaging paper from 100% recycled paper on two machines. BTG’s consistency transmitters are placed directly after the clarifier for each machine and monitor on-line the filtrate from the clarifiers. The transmitters have helped to reduce the previous high levels of solids emissions with the result that freshwater consumption is now 25% per kg of paper lower. In addition, the lower, constant and controlled level of solids has improved the runnability of the paper machines as blockages due to high solids contents can now be prevented. Savings from reduced costs for freshwater and from eliminating penalty fees paid for the equipment in just three months.