Water Management
Cherish Water Resources
Water is an important resource for the paper industry. CLC carefully planned the use of water resources when evaluating and selecting production sites. In addition to considering policies, regulations and corporate development, we also took into account the water resources needs of surrounding residents. Valuing water resources, CLC improves water use efficiency through recycling and reuse with perfect water resources management, expansion of diversified water resources, and prevention management, and continues to introduce innovative water-saving solutions to maximize the benefit of every drop of water. In 2022, CLC's process water recovery rate was up to 96.3%, and the total daily process water recovery exceeded 949 million liters. All CLC factories are equipped with the wastewater treatment system to continuously monitor the quality of the effluent and ensure that the quality of the effluent meets the legal standards. The Company also continues to promote the optimized operation of wastewater plants. In recent three years (2020-2022), a total of NT$810 million has been invested in improving wastewater improvement measures, including the installation of anaerobic treatment equipment (including biogas power generation system), the optimization of tertiary treatment systems, etc. Also, we comprehensive control the conditions of process water to improve water treatment efficiency and ensure the compliance of effluent, in order to maintain nature and ecosystems, nourish biodiversity, and fix carbon to mitigate the greenhouse effect.
CLC's main water sources are groundwater, river water (surface water), and tap water, which are primarily used for production processes. In addition to implementing rainwater harvesting as a source, the paper mills utilize various recycling technologies to manage process water through classification, recycling, and reuse, enhancing water resource utilization efficiency. Some paper mills can reuse a drop of water up to 22 times, achieving a process water recycling rate of 92% to 96%. To effectively manage water resources within the plant, the company annually completes water balance data based on water usage plans, and some paper mills have also installed smart water meters, allowing real-time access to water-related information through computer connections.
In terms of total water intake, surface water and groundwater accounted for approximately 97.8% in 2022, while tap water accounted for approximately 2.2%. The total water intake was about 17,635 million liters, an increase of 207 million liters compared to 2021. The total water consumption, calculated by subtracting total wastewater discharge from total water intake, was 1,015 million liters. Although in 2022 the water consumption per unit product in the Containerboard Division increased by 19.31%, the Paper Products Division and Household Products and Paperboard Division continued to implement water-saving measures and decreased accumulated by 0.88% in recent 4 years (2019-2022), resulting in stable or even reduced water consumption per unit product in 2022.
For the proper management of water withdrawal sources, we reduce water consumption according to the government regulations during reduced supply or regional water rationing.When there is reduced supply or regional rationing of tap water, we adopt measures including: (1) Flexible adjustment of tap water consumption or reclamation of effluents for reuse in the process. (2) Replace part of fresh water with effluents. (3) Process adjustment and management ( process water conservation and management models).