Company Name: Mondi

Location: Russia

Wastewater as a resource

Mondi Group’s Syktyvkar mill in Komi, Russia, operates a wastewater treatment plant that treats its own industrial wastewater and that of the local community. The plant recently made upgrades worth USD $139 million to improve its treatment processes in addition to replacing old biofuel boilers and turbines. This resulted in a reduction of chemical oxygen demand (COD) emissions by 22% in 2017 as compared to 2015. The mill dewaters and reuses all the bio-sludge produced at the wastewater treatment plant as biofuel in an energy plant operated by Mondi, providing energy for central heating in the town. Mondi Group’s investment will help substitute 128 million m3 of natural gas with the biofuel, thus saving money and resulting in a total green energy generation capacity of 170 MW. Additionally, Mondi sells the sludge produced from primary treatment processes to fiber-producing industries or brickmakers as raw materials. It sells the ashes to industries that can make use