Sappi Ltd.

The Usutu Pulp Mill, based in Bhunya, Swaziland, is situated on the banks of the Lusutfu River (into which it directly discharges waste) and processes the wood produced on Sappi Ltd monoculture plantations surrounding the mill into unbleached kraft pulp. Most of the 230,000 tons of annual production is exported to Southeast Asia via an agent in Hong Kong, and requires 1 million tons of good quality softwood as feedstock. The Usutu mill and surrounding plantations employ roughly 3,000 people.

According to Yonge Nawe Environmental Action Group's State of the Environment Report 2005, kraft pulping, also known as sulphate, or chemical pulping, uses sulpher to get fiber out of softwood. The sulphur chemicals account for the rotten egg smell of many pulp mills, and the resulting emissions damage both human health and the environment. Furthermore, kraft pulping is wasteful, utilizing less than 50 percent of the tree, and the waste ends up as sludge that is burned, spread on land, or landfilled. Kraft pulp is usually dark and is often bleached with chlorine. Pulp mills are large sources of air pollutants, such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, sulphur dioxides, carbon monoxides, and particulate matter. These emissions contribute to ozone warnings, acid rain, and global warming. Air discharges from pulp mills can cause respiratory problems and also contain hormone-disrupting and carcinogenic chemicals such as chlorinated phenols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), airborne dioxins, and furans.

Yonge Nawe has also conducted several field visits to communities living in the area surrounding the Usutu Pulp Mill, to document community member claims of health and environmental impacts from the mill's emissions. Community concerns include:

• Local residents worry about the effect of the smoke from the plant on their health.
• Frequent health complaints include asthma, chest pains, bronchitis and hair loss.
• Residents complain that sometimes the smoke comes in liquid form and causes a burning sensation in the eyes.
• The corrugated iron roofs on homesteads in the valley are corroded by emissions from the plant and this has caused leakage.
• The mill has polluted area rivers such that the fish have died and the water is not safe for human use.
• Sappi management employees are housed at Mhlambanyatsi, 15 kilometers north of Bhunya, while the bulk of workers and their families live in cheap accommodation right next to the mill -- directly exposed to air pollutants and emissions.