AUBURN — Swapping out the nozzles in one of the machines at Cascades Auburn Fiber would save a few gallons of water, said Jonathan Paquette, a process engineer at the Lewiston Junction Road plant.

He thought replacing the 36 aging water nozzles on the company’s No. 1 washer would have an immediate, if moderate, impact.

“We figured we’d save 15 gallons of water a minute,” Paquette said. That would be 21,600 gallons of water each day, more than seven million gallons saved each year.

So Paquette was surprised last month when the new nozzles worked better than expected — saving nearly twice as much water as estimated.

The more efficient nozzles let the company use about 90,000 gallons of water per day, down from about 150,000 gallons. The changes are expected to save the company at least $97,000 per year in city fees alone.

“It saves the company in three ways,” Paquette said. “First, we don’t have to use as much fresh water as before. Second, we don’t have to spend as much to heat the water before we use it. Third, we don’t have as much effluent to dispose of in the sewers.”

The Auburn plant is located miles away from a freshwater source, so it pays the Auburn Water District to have fresh water. It pays the Auburn Sewer District to dispose of the effluent.

Using less water is part of a review process the company is conducting, looking for ways to save or reduce energy, Paquette said.

Other ideas, such as recycling water used between machines and cutting down on water used to seal and lubricate other processes, are longer-term fixes. It might take awhile to get them up and running.

The company prides itself on being green, Production Manager Grant Byras said.

“The company was founded by three brothers collecting recycling at the side of the roads, so it really is our company mission,” he said. “We call ourselves ‘the green company.'”

The Auburn plant manufactures recycled paper pulp in the form of brilliant white sheets of thin tissue. Those sheets are sold by the pallet to paper manufacturers along the East Coast. Companies combine them with their own paper pulp — usually made directly from trees — to boost the recycled-material content in their products.

“Sometimes, companies like L.L. Bean will contact a mill and tell them they want paper with a certain percent of recyclable material in it,” Byras said. Some manufacturers have their own recycling plants and can fill those orders on their own, but most don’t. They rely on the Auburn plant for recycled paper fiber.

The company processes tons of recycled office paper, buying it from brokers up and down the East Coast. The paper is shredded, soaked, screened and bleached before it reaches the No. 1 washer, where it is spread across rollers and sprayed with the high-pressure nozzles to wash away contaminants.

“Anything left behind can have an impact on the final product,” Byras said. Glue left behind from Post-It Notes, for example, could ruin batches of recycled paper. That’s why the nozzles are so important, Byras said.

Changing the nozzles has also made them more powerful, increasing their output from 400 pounds-per-square inch to 475, Paquette said.

“We are using less water, and we have not changed the quality of our product,” Byras said. “That’s the bottom line for us.”

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