without steaming but with a meter screw and a horizontally or vertically disposed wash vessel not shown downstream of the meter screw where wash liquid may be introduced the wash effluent may thus be drained from the wash vessel and processed in the pulp mill 39 s existing wastewater treatment system the system 20 shown in fig2 includes a similar chip bin 12 as depicted in fig1 in that it is steam may be injected into the wood chips contained therein by line 22 1 and that it is provided with a meter screw 24 in addition the chip bin 22 is provided with a plurality of serially arranged horizontally or vertically disposed wash vessels 25 26 downstream thereof where wash liquid may be introduced the chips may be washed with water or other suitable aqueous stream via line 27 the liquid may be drained from an initial one of the wash vessels 25 via line 25 1 and then directed to a second downstream wash vessel 26 where the chips are washed a second time liquid drained from the second wash vessel may be divided into respective portions with one portion thereof being employed as wastewater treatment via line 26 1 and another portion thereof used to flow counter current via line 26 2 with the wood chips in the first wash vessel 25 thus with the series of wash vessels 25 26 as depicted in fig2 each one has the ability to gather the drained wash liquid and return it to the preceding wash vessel.