Mill Environmental Performance

APRIL's integrated pulp and paper mills in Riau, Sumatra are benchmarked against the world's best and constantly seek to enhance performance to ensure the health and safety of our employees and the surrounding communities. Optimizing the mills' environmental performance is also paramount to our company, in accordance with our firm commitment to sustainability.

APRIL continues to have all emissions and effluents measured regularly against external standards, with monitoring conducted by our own team and third parties.

In 2005, APRIL implemented several measures to enhance the mills' performance, including improvements in daily monitoring systems, construction of a new landfill, and waste reduction and recycling. As a result, the mills achieved several milestones, including certification under OHSAS 18001 which builds on its ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001 certifications.

From "Blue" to "Green"
APRIL mill has been awarded the "Green Rating" for PROPER 2004 - 2005 by the Ministry of Environment, in its recent Satisfactory Compliance checks. This is a significant improvement over the Blue Rating obtained in 2002 and 2003.

The rating system is given as part of the national Program for Pollution Control Evaluation and Rating (PROPER), a public reporting initiative implemented by the Indonesian government to promote compliance with environmental standards and strengthen transparency. Under PROPER, industrial firms are evaluated by the government's Environmental Impact and Management Agency (BAPEDAL) for their environmental performance on indicators like air emissions, waste water management, and solid wastes management.

The results are given in the form of a five-color rating scheme - gold, green, blue, red and black - and reflect performance ranging from excellent to poor. The Green Ratings indicate that APRIL's mill performance is 50 percent above legal standards and that the mills use technology that is clean and green, minimizes wastes, prevents pollution and conserves resources.

The safety of the employees is a key priority for APRIL and several initiatives have been developed and implemented to maintain a culture of safety within the mills. In recognition of these efforts, the Indonesian Government awarded APRIL with the Golden Flag Award, the highest recognition for excellent performance in implementing Occupational Safety and Health System, in 2005.

Air Emissions
APRIL's mills are equipped with extensive air emission control systems that capture and prevent suspended particulates from entering the atmosphere. Malodorous gases are also collected and incinerated in the recovery boiler. Continuous Emission Monitoring Systems are installed at various critical points, including the power boiler, recovery boiler, dissolving tank, lime kiln, digester and bleaching plant.

Third party verifiers - PT SUCOFINDO, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) - regularly examine our emission levels with their own equipment and testing systems to provide an independent assurance that APRIL's mill meet and exceed national and international standards.

Water Quality
All key indicators - level of BOD, COD, TSS, pH, total phosphorous and total nitrogen - are regularly monitored by APRIL and independent third parties, such as the University of Riau (UNRI), SUCOFINDO, and a local environmental interest group, Yayasan Riau Mandiri (Riau Mandiri Foundation).

Utilizing the Ahlstrom USF Aquaflow system with activated Sludge Process, all effluent treatment processes comply with the specifications of Indonesian regulations, the US Cluster Rule, the World Bank Pollution Prevention Guidelines, and the European Commission's Best Available Techniques for the Pulp and Paper Industry.

Management of Mill Residues
The 5R approach - reduce, recover, reuse, recycle, replace - remains our guiding principle in solid waste management. This is implemented through several initiatives, such as the burning of sludge in the power boiler which contributes to energy generation, boiler ash application in road pavement and concrete brick manufacture, and the use of screen rejects as material for second grade paper production.

In a joint project with two pulp and paper research centers in Indonesia, we are also testing the use of sludge as compost material to fertilize our Acacia plantations in mineral soils.