The Process Management section of the ZDHC MMCF Guidelines V3.0 defines the requirements for chemical recovery within MMCF manufacturing facilities. The goal is to ensure that chemicals used in fibre production are recovered, reused or recycled efficiently to minimise environmental impact. 

The ZDHC requirements for chemical recovery rates are categorised at three levels: Foundational, Progressive and Aspirational. This encourages continuous improvement activities at a facility to achieve higher limits of recovery of chemicals used and move towards circularity.

MMCF facilities should implement chemical recovery processes and initiate the following actions under process management:

• Maintain a detailed record of chemical recovery activities and calculations based on the type of MMCF fibre.

• Meet the chemical recovery requirement, as applicable from Tables 5-10.

• Report chemical recovery data as a yearly average of the calendar year (from 1 January to 31 December) on a ZDHC platform to evaluate against the limit values specified in the guidelines.

Chemical recovery requirements by fibre type

• VSF / VSF & modal- sulphur recovery (%) and sodium sulphate recovery (%)

• VFY (viscose filament yarn)- sodium sulphate recovery (%)

• Lyocell- NMMO recovery (%)

• Cupro- copper and ammonia recovery (%)

• Acetate- acetone recovery (%)