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BioRegional
MiniMills (UK) Ltd.
Agricultural residues such as
wheat straw are plentiful and can be used to make the paper we need.
In fact 8% of the world’s paper is made from non-wood fibres.
As agricultural residues are bulky they are best pulped on a small-scale
of around 10,000 – 30,000 tones per year - much smaller than
wood pulp mills.
To date the main problem with using these residues is that there
is no clean technology to treat the toxic effluent produced at this
small scale. Because of the pollution that the effluent has caused,
many small, straw paper mills in China and India have been closed
down, holding back the use of agricultural residues to make paper
there and in Europe.
BioRegional MiniMills (UK) Ltd was established in 1997 to develop
and apply small-scale, clean technology to pulp straw and recover
energy and pulping chemicals from the effluent – the MiniMill.
The MiniMill has been developed to the point where the technical
and economic feasibility is proven and a pilot has been run. Now
an industrial scale demonstration plant is being constructed at
a paper mill in Manchester, UK.
Last updated 14th January 2008
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