Abstract:
Pulp and paper industry is highly capital, material and energy intensive. It produces a large volume of gaseous, liquid and solid wastes. Unfortunately as things stand, paper industry haa earned a bad name as a major polluting process industry. In India, there are about 305 paper mills and 4 large newsprint mills (above 150 TPD capacity) of these 251 mills belongs to small paper mills category (upto 30 TPD capacity). Fifty two percent of the total paper is produced by small and medium paper mills (upto 60 TPD capacity). Most of the small paper mills use agriculture residues, waste paper and other nonconventional raw
materials. About 200 small paper mills are based on waste paper, 47 mills on cereal straws, 20 mills on bagasse and .8 mills are on pulp, while rest 30 mills use conventional raw materials like hard wood, bamboo etc. (Rao (1988), DGTA Report (1989.
