Special Report No. 77-06: A Survey of Pulp and Paper Industry Environmental Protection Expenditures and Operating Costs – 1976

National Council's survey of industry environmental expenditures during 1976, which was conducted during the first half of 1977. Based on questionnaire information solicited at the corporate level it also contains projections of capital expenditures planned for 1977. All such capital expenditures are categorized for report purposes among air and water quality protection and solid waste management at the point of primary pulp and paper manufacture. Prepared by Russell O. Blosser of the National Council staff, the report was made possible only by the valued participation of numerous corporate personnel who translated internal data into the format required by our questionnaire. The report itself addresses a number of questions related to the magnitude of such expenditures. For the fifth consecutive year the environmental protection expenditures reached at least 29 percent of the total capital expenditures in the primary industry section involving pulp and paper manufacturing.   For the fourth year the survey addressed the question of the extent to which special amortization, tax relief and financing methods have been employed to assist in financing this extensive capital expenditures program for environmental protection. . Operating, fixed, administrative and research costs for 1976 are presented and total $828 million. These are further subdivided where possible among the three principal operational areas in line with past practice. The determination of administrative costs, which totaled $44 million, was reported again this year. Expressed on a 1976 production basis, total costs reached $13 per ton of paper and paperboard production, or approximately 3 percent higher than 1975. This is the fifth year that the expenditures survey was conducted on a corporate basis. A simplified procedure and data analysis methodology will again be employed in early 1978 to expedite the development of similar survey data for 1977.