Wisconsin companies are encouraged to participate in the voluntary program, Wisconsin's Beneficial Use of Industrial Byproducts.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources operates a hazardous waste management program to protect the state's air, soil and water.

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Local paper company uses waste to enhance farm land

While household garbage reaches landfills via a trip to the curb and a ride in a garbage truck, other waste is not so easily disposed.

Throughout the nation, companies generate waste as part of the manufacturing process.  Some of it is discarded in dumpsters, but large amounts of by-products can serve beneficial purposes.  In Eau Claire, Cascades Tissue Group – Wisconsin Inc., a paper mill located at 1200 Forest St. on the Chippewa River, spreads the seemingly useless sludge it generates on area farmland to enhance soil quality.

The paper mill creates various types of absorbent tissues out of recycled paper, said Kathy Gillespie, an environmental engineer at the paper mill.  But creating paper products generates wood- and clay-based sludge.

The sludge primarily results from the pulping process.  Recycled paper is combined with water to create pulp, which later becomes the finished product.  Wastewater is left after the pulping process and it enters an on-site treatment center.  In a settling tank, heavy solids sink to lower depths.  The solid material is then removed and squeezed of some of its water content, which leaves sludge.

The resulting sludge is approximately 50 percent clay and 50 percent wood fiber, said Steve Thon, an environmental engineer with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.  There are also small portions of metals and ink in the sludge.

“Almost 99 percent of [the sludge] is land-spread,” Gillespie said.  If it is not applied to land, which is usually due to bad weather, it is transported to a landfill and used to cover a day’s garbage.

On average, six loads of sludge are spread every day, Gillespie said.  Most loads have about 25 tons of wet sludge.

There are two benefits of applying the sludge to local fields, Gillespie said.  First, it can help neutralize the soil’s acidity.  If it is near neutral, more nutrients will reach the plant.  Also, the clay in the sludge helps build up sandy soil while the wood fibers retain moisture from rain water.  This reduces erosion and runoff problems.

“It’s a win-win situation,” Gillespie said.  “It’s great for farmland and it’s a great disposal option for the paper mill.”

Wayne McCann, who lives north of Fall Creek, agrees.

“I know it raises awful good crops,” he said.

McCann rents his land to farmers, he said.  In the past seven years, he has had the paper mill apply its sludge on two occasions to between 25 and 30 acres of land.

“To me, it’s a soil builder,” he said.  “It’s real good on sandy land.”

A semi truck unloads a pile of sludge near the fields it will be spread on, McCann said. Then a manure spreader throws it onto the fields at around two inches in depth.

And it is free for the farmer, Gillespie and McCann said.

Before 1970, significantly more sludge was discarded in the Chippewa River, Thon said.  But the sludge lowers oxygen levels, which can kill fish.  Since then, waste disposal has changed.

Cascades is not the only company that has found a use for its waste. 

In 1997 the DNR implemented Wisconsin’s Beneficial Use of Industrial Byproducts Program, which encourages companies in the state to find uses for environmentally safe waste, Waste Management Specialist Michael Miller said.

“Certain by-products are generated that are of low enough contaminate and have a physical characteristic that warrants replacement of other virgin materials,” Miller said.

Different by-products can be used in a variety of ways, including road construction and building foundations.  Doing so lowers the amount of space used in, and expansion of, landfills.

While Cascades is not in the program, Miller said it encourages companies to join and use material that will otherwise be discarded as trash.  It seeks to minimize landfill expansion and make waste, which is often considered useless, desired.