During the manufacture of tissue products, wood pulp is bleached to remove natural lignin compounds. This is essential to meet consumer expectations, as lignin affects the color of the product as well as the strength, feel and shelf life. A variety of processes and compounds are used to bleach the pulp and recycled fiber used in our tissue products. These include chlorine dioxide, sodium hypochlorite, sodium hydrosulfite, oxygen, and hydrogen peroxide.

For our consumer products, we purchase elemental chlorine-free (ECF) and total chlorine-free (TCF) bleached pulp. The ECF process uses chlorine dioxide rather than pure chlorine, reducing toxicity. During 2007, 94 percent of total pulp purchased was ECF and a further 5.8 percent was TCF. One of our South American suppliers still uses chlorine bleaching, but plans to convert to ECF by July 2008. It is our intention to use no pure chlorine-bleached pulp after the third quarter of 2008.

The two pulp mills we operate in Tantanoola, South Australia, and Everett, Washington, U.S., use TCF and ECF bleaching technology, respectively.

We seek to treat wastewater from our facilities properly. Our facilities use advanced technologies, including primary and secondary treatment, to achieve high standards of wastewater quality. Our Vision 2010 corporate targets for wastewater quality are based on two measures for assessing the level of wastewater pollution and the amount of treatment required. These are biological oxygen demand (BOD) and total suspended solids (TSS). We track BOD and TSS data at all our facilities to show compliance with our wastewater treatment permits. We began to aggregate this data at a corporate level in 2006.

In 2007, 95 percent of applicable facilities met their TSS and BOD targets, the same as last year. We will continue to work with the remaining facilities to improve their treatment systems and meet the targets.