“Deb Bruner serves in Pinnacle Press as director of book publishing and eco-friendly initiatives. She has more than 25 years experience in the publishing, paper and printing industries. Prior to Pinnacle, Bruner worked as the director of book publishing papers for New Leaf Paper, the environmentally friendly paper merchant, where she managed mill relationships and developed sales opportunities.”

“For in addition to the resort, this town on Siberia’s Lake Baikal—the oldest, largest and deepest freshwater lake in the world—is home to the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill, which has been belching foul-smelling sulfates into the air and chlorides, phenols and other chemicals into the lake since it was built during the Cold War. The pollution killed plants, crabs and fish and threatened the world’s only freshwater seal, the earless nerpa. Environmentalists have been trying to shut down the mill since 1964, getting precisely nowhere. But where greens failed, the global recession succeeded all too well. In November, the plant ceased production. “The economic crisis,” says Marina Rikhvanova, the head of the environmental group Baikal Wave, worked “like magic.”

“Dioxins are a group of toxic persistent organic chemicals that remain in the environment indefinitely. Dioxins are not deliberately produced, but are released into the environment as a result of combustion and other chemical processes. Human activities involving these processes include power generation and waste incineration, and the manufacture of metals and some chemicals. Some types of organochlorides have significant toxicity to plants or animals, including humans. Dioxins, produced when organic matter is burned in the presence of chlorine, and some insecticides such as DDT are persistent organic pollutants which pose dangers when they are released into the environment. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), dioxins cause cancer in humans. Other sources are convinced it can cause learning disorders, decreased immune response and diabetes. It is interesting to note that the same chlorine issue is rampant when using virgin-fiber based toilet tissue.”