One of the city’s oldest companies has been honored for its recent efforts to incorporate newer green technologies.

Wausau Paper’s environmental efforts were acknowledged Jan. 24 by the Southwest Ohio Water Environment Association when they were awarded the Karl G. Voelkel Industry Award at the annual industrial Waste Conference at the Marriott Conference Center in Dayton. The honor, according to the association, recognizes “outstanding environmental achievement.”

“This award supports the fact we are a green company, we care about the environment,” said Denise Curry, Wausau Paper environmental manager. “We’re doing the right things by being good stewards in the environment and in the local community.”

Wausau Paper makes the EcoSoft brand towel and bath tissue, and manufactures more than 300 tons of the products per day using recycled waste paper as the primary raw material. Doug Zirbel, Wausau Paper vice president of operations, said 99 percent of their products will be Green Seal certified by the end of the year.

The company also has its own wastewater treatment plant, and the treated water is released into the Great Miami River.

A representative from SWOWEA could not be reached, but according to the organization’s winter newsletter, “The presentation of this award is in recognition of an industry’s outstanding contribution in waste minimization, pollution prevention, environmental compliance and environmental stewardship.”

Any nominated company for the Voelkel award must meet at least one of seven criteria. Curry said they met six of the seven.

The company has developed what they have call eco-vision, which Curry and Zibel said are specific environmental goals to be accomplished to reduce the environmental impact and reduce the use raw materials.

“That eco-vision has three very distinct focus areas to help continue to pave a path for continuous improvements in the future,” Zirbel said.

“We have invested in the infrastructure to try to improve the image of this facility, and that kind helps paint that whole picture of being more of community driver. To be an asset to the community you have to be a good place to work, you can’t be an eyesore and the impact on the environment has to continuously be improving.”

Being an environmentally conscious company also helps the company’s bottom line, Zirbel said. By improving the yield of the company’s de-inking process, which removes ink from waste paper the company purchases, he said the company saved more than $1 million last year. And by diverting some of the sludge from the de-inking process away from landfills, the company saved about $700,000 “by finding other beneficial uses for that sludge.”

Wausau Paper is headquartered in Wisconsin and owns six manufacturing facilities in Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota and Kentucky. The Middletown mill was founded by Erwin Brothers in the 1850s before it became Sorg Paper. It was purchased by Bay West and then Wausau Paper.

Wausau’s Middletown facility employs around 200.