Recycle Paper AND Cardboard!

SWINDON, UK, Jan. 21, 2009 (Press Release) – Today’s publication by BSI of PAS 2020 ‘Direct Marketing – Environmental Performance – Specification’ on environmental management of direct marketing campaigns is a laudable initiative to address this important area. However, the conclusions that it draws about the recyclability of certain materials does not reflect the reality of the paper recycling industry.

The document states that brown paper, including envelopes, is not currently collected within the majority of UK kerbside recycling systems and therefore should not be the material of choice. Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI) does not agree that kerbside collection should be the single criterion used to determine recyclability. CPI can not accept this part of PAS 2020.

Brown paper, including envelopes, is readily recyclable and the majority of this material is already made from recycled fibre. Discouraging the use of a product made from recycled materials that is easy to recycle makes no sense. If kerbside opportunities do not exist, then they can be easily recycled within the corrugated cardboard collection systems through bring or civic amenity sites.

There are large variations in UK Local Authority kerbside collection systems, based on contractual arrangements between local authorities and their end market reprocessors. If a particular collection system is employed for recycling into newsprint then they may not want brown paper, including envelopes or cardboard. However, if they are recycling into paper for corrugated cardboard boxes or other uses then brown paper is very desirable. None of this alters the basic fact that household paper – both white and brown – is readily recyclable.

To determine recyclability simply by the popularity of collection method employed is not appropriate when a product is easily recyclable with clear end-market demand. There should be no differentiation in this standard between white and brown paper.

This reinforces the CPI position that there needs to be a greater understanding of the realities of recycling, focused on what is genuinely recyclable for the benefit of both the environment and the economy.

Last Year, This Year…..

And so we start the New Year of 2009, which gives one an opportunity to reflect on the past twelve months and mayhap glance at what this new year might bring for the British and European paper industry.

 

We have seen in the U.K. quite unexpected closures of Curtis Fine Papers (successors to both William Sommerville and Culter Guardbridge); International Paper’s Inverurie mill (previously Thomas Tait); SAPPI Blackburn (formerly UK Paper/Bowater Star Paper Mill); and M-Real New Thames mill at Kemsley in Kent. There is threat of closure over Arjo Wiggins Dartford mill, and three other (not necessarily) unrelated mills that it would be wrong of me to name at this time. While on the subject of Arjo Wiggins, they have cut back to the bone (ready for closure) their world renowned research centre at Butlers Court.

 

In France Matussiére et Forest have gone, taking with them the five mills that they had not previously shut or sold-on, the others have mostly already failed of their own volition. A huge question mark still hangs over the Pont-Sainte-Maxence mill (once MoDo PSM) which is a terrible shame, I really, really want that mill to succeed, and many others on the Continent have closed.

 

But at least in mainland Europe there is hope: Powerflute AB has bought the centuries old (previously) family owned Scheufelen, makers of the best Real Art coated papers in the World (with the exception of but a few); and what was most recently Cordenons (and the deceased Adapack) mill at Malmédy in Belgium has been bought with both machines (fine art printing & writings, and one side coated label & poster papers) and is to return to the time honoured name of Intermills – what joy! Favini itself has managed to find a new partner and will, against all odds and expectations, continue as a two mill Italian company producing some very exciting papers.

 

In Spain, Clariana has stopped one machine making white papers, but continues to produce excellent coloured papers on its other machine (with an eye to ‘last man standing’?), yet Aconda, also in Spain, has filed for administration.

 

Arctic Paper has shut the Håfrestroms mill in Sweden, but bought Gryksbo which had been independent for a few years having been cast adrift by StoraEnso. Arctic Paper have also purchased Mochenwangen Papier in Germany to further strengthen their book papers offering, and transferred their head office functions to Poland where they (Arctic Paper) already operate the Kostrzyn mill.

 

The year saw some confusion with regard to M-real’s graphical printing papers division, first offered to Arjo Wiggins, but the E.C. Commissioners stopped that because of the dominance in the carbonless papers market that such a merger would bring, with Arjo’s Idem and Zanders Autocopy. But Arjo did buy M-real’s paper merchanting division, though again the E.C. stepped in and made Arjo sell one of the ex-M-real merchants (Premier Paper), which they did so, to family owned Beswick Paper.

 

So where did this leave the M-real graphical mills, scattered across Europe. SAPPI took them all, except for Zanders’ two mills, Reflex & Gohrsmühle in Germany, and Hallein in Austria. SAPPI gained Kirkniemi and Kangas mills in Finland; Stockstadt in Germany, and Biberist in Switzerland. Now for the complicated bit: M-real kept Aanekoski in Finland and Husum in Sweden, both producers of coated graphical papers (which is what, rather like International Paper, M-real wanted to get away from) but the production of Aanekoski and that of Husum’s PM8 is under long-term contract exclusivity to SAPPI. It’s what we in Kent refer to as a buggers muddle (whatever the derivation of that phrase is!).

 

Whether SAPPI will keep all the ex-M-real brands going is not yet known, but those with significant market share (Galerie, Allegro, EuroArt, Ikono, and for personal sake, I hope Nimrod, but I doubt it). M-Real will still have Zanders Chromolux cast-coated, and all their regular uncoated printings and writings grades, and coated digital papers, but sitting here today on the first of January 2009, it is all rather messy.

 

Of the three new newsprint mills that Britain was to see at least the ground-breaking ceremonies of, only one went ahead, Palm Paper at Kings Lynn, which is going on strong, in fact that mill saw its topping-out ceremony just a few weeks ago. A new packaging grades mill that was to have been built for SIACCA of Spain, at Bury in Lancashire, is now on hold, initially for six months, but latest well-founded gossip tells me will actually be a whole year if not more.

 

Of broader interest is the economic downfall of virtually every country on Earth, though a few were less ‘injured’ than others. In the U.S. the Dow closed the year 30% down, in London the ‘Footsie’ was 31% down, and even the oil rich middle-east states are feeling the pinch, with the Dubai exchange losing 35% of its value against the same time last year. On the bright side, oil has plummeted from an all time high in the summer of $147 per barrel to now just $40, and as energy prices are in some inexplicable way linked to crude oil prices, we should see drops in purchased power costs, which if they had happened a year ago, maybe not so many mills would have had to shut after all!

 

But all is not quiet on the Eastern Front, with Russia again cutting-off the gas (that’s the smelly gaseous stuff, not the American for petroleum n’est-ce pas) to Ukraine, just as they did a year ago which will have crippling effects on that nation (including Horizon Pulp and Paper Mill), and probably knock-on effects for the rest of Europe.

 

No matter which way you look at it, 2009 will be a rocky year, with many ‘downs’ and very few ‘ups’, no matter where you are. Even in the Far East, China has put many mills on stand-by and some will never open again, largely because the workforce has gone back to the paddy fields and their rural economy. Likewise Indonesia is seeing a slump in demand for its products, which is wonderful news for the tropical forest (don’t get me started) which although seldom injured directly by the pulp and paper industry in that part of the world, the brutally (and often illegally) cleared land was sometimes replanted with fast-growing non-native species for the timber and pulp trades.

 

Finally, on a high note, the environmentally hated Baikal Pulp and Paper Works at Lake Baikal in Russia has ‘temporarily’ closed, because it proved too expensive to implement a closed loop water system that would have stopped the pollution of the worlds largest (12,000+ square miles) fresh water lake containing 20% of the world’s unfrozen fresh water, and at 5369 feet deep, also the deepest. It is said that it would take all the rivers on the planet a whole year to fill Lake Baikal, yet it was constantly under threat from the pollution from the antiquated, massive pulp and paper mill on its shores. Not any more, but before my dear readers breathe a collective sigh of relief, the main reason why the pulp and paper company could not afford to put only clean water back into the lake was because the Russian authorities insisted that the mill also treat the sewerage from the local town, 2300 of whose residents worked at the mill. So, at least for the time being, there will be no mill waste going into Lake Baikal, but untreated raw sewerage will continue to pollute it, and as the 2300 former employees will be spending more time at home sitting on their own lavatories rather than taking a dump on the company time, there will be more of it!

 

The financial pundits who never saw the financial crisis until it smacked them right in the chops with the collapse of Leeman Brothers (at least, that’s now the ‘officially’ recognised straw that broke the camel’s back) now state that 2009 will stink too, and get generally better during 2010, so I’ll bet you a pound (sterling for what it’s worth) to a pinch of snuff, that either they are wrong AGAIN and it will all be better sooner, or else they are also wrong and it is going to last a whole lot longer. I hope not.

 

Anyhow, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It just doesn’t add up

In an article that I wrote back in February about 3 new newsprint mills in the U.K., one of my concerns was the lack off raw material (old and over-issue newspapers & magazines) to feed these plants. Time has told a different story, witness my article of 17th. of November.

 

But for a moment I should like to return to my main concern: availability of raw material. UPM Shotton, on Deeside in North Wales, has been recognized by the Welsh Assembly for ‘Best Practice in Supply Chain Projects’, basically for all their (UPM Shotton’s) work over the past five years turning the mill from raw wood as a source of fibre, to 100% waste paper consumption, for the production of recycled newsprint. Well done UPM Shotton, an award richly deserved!

 

As part of the press release, UPM stated that they currently recycle about 30% of the UK’s household recovered paper, i.e. 650,000 tonnes per annum, in the production of 520,000 tonnes UPM News fully recycled newsprint.  Aylesford Newsprint’s 2 machines use 500,000 tonnes of waste to produce 400,000 of Renaissance recycled newsprint. Palm Paper at Kings Lynn will, it is anticipated, use up to 500,000 tonnes of that same waste material to produce 400,000 tonnes of Palm News recycled newsprint.

 

As my friends in the U.S. would say, “You do the math!” why do they leave off the ‘s’ in their abbreviation of mathematics? (And why is abbreviation such a long word?).

Thus there is no spare fibre around for Ecco or PM15 at Aylesford, though the latter would have replaced the aging PM13 ‘tis true.

 

But there is another factor to consider: until recently the U.K. exported vast quantities of waste paper to the Far East. Now I know that the market there has collapsed, and it will be a year or two before we see anything like the same figures again, if ever, and there is even talk of former customers in China etc. actually charging their former waste paper suppliers for the destruction/disposal of the waste.

 

Finally, you’ll be pleased to know, these newsprint mills are not the only users of waste newspapers and magazines. There is also AbitibiBowater’s Bridgewater Paper Company at Ellsemere Port that uses something like 200,000 tonnes for their recycled newsprint production.

As an aside, the former M-Real New Thames mill at Kemsley near Sittingbourne in Kent uses office waste, printers waste and woodfree magazine waste in their fabulous RCF (recycled fibre) plant for conversion to white office papers at the adjacent New Thames Mill (which in January 2009 will become a brown waste-paper packaging grades mill, under it’s new owners D.S.Smith’s subsidiary St.Regis who own another mill just around the corner already) and instead of simply pumping wet pulp more-or-less straight on to the paper machine (over simplification I know), are contracted to continue to supply the same recycled pulp, wet-lapped on lorries, through the Channel Tunnel to the M-Real Alizay Mill in France for the manufacture of those same papers previously made at New Thames. The logistical figures that this author has recently heard beggar belief!

And Then There Was One

“…upon whose track it is expedient to follow with hurried steps, lest this history should be chargeable with inconstancy, and the offence of leaving its characters in situations of uncertainty and doubt…” Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop)

 

In an earlier article, ‘New U.K. Recycled Newsprint Mills’  – February 9^th. 2008 – I spoke of my scepticism about the possibility of three new massive recycled newsprint manufactories that were scheduled to be made underway this year. My concern at that time was the genuine availability of sufficient waste material for these as well as existing users, to say naught of a proven market for the production itself. No-one expected the bottom to fall out of the financial world – or if they did they locked their money tightly down at a fixed rate of interest and watch the turmoil fall about them – which has caused so much upheaval, not least in the world of pulp and paper.

 

There were, at the beginning of 2008, new plants and machines destined for Palm Paper at Kings Lynn in Norfolk; Ecco Newsprint at Wilton, on Teeside in North-East England; and a new machine on Aylesford Newsprint’s existing site near Maidstone in Kent.

 

As is my wont, I’ll start with the last one first, Aylesford Newsprint. The new machine, PM15 will not now be built, a) because of the current financial situation and it’s knock-on effects on commerce and industry, and b) because they have only recently completed (very successfully I might add!) Project Jura, which was the almost total rebuild of the wet-end on their current leviathan, the (then) 310,000 tonnes per year 9.4 metre wide machine that “went bang” last November. Early reports were that the headbox slice had been bent but all was now well again (RISI November 27, 2006). In truth, it took the use of a 1000 tonne jack to pull the headbox back into shape. This and a few modifications allowed the machine to carry on production, short-term, but a major overhaul was required, and what an ideal opportunity to bring the machine bang up-to-date?

 

A year later (5^th –17^th. November 2007) the machine was stopped and the pre-fabricated new headbox was installed, along with numerous other bits of kit, and 68,000 engineering man-hours later, Renaissance Newsprint was again being made on a revamped machine “..now firmly in the 21^st. century.”  Please go to http://www.aylesford-newsprint.co.uk/PDFs/Project_Jura_Book.pdf and be awestruck and inspired! But the millions of pounds that project Jura must have cost, as well as the increased and improved production, coupled with a declining market and worldwide over-capacity (thank you China) meant there was no money, nor yet need, for the proposed PM15 at Aylesford. One down, two to go.

 

Ecco Newsprint have signed a 125 year lease for the land in Wilton on Teeside, and a Letter of Intent for Metso “ …to purchase a very efficient, environmentally important and highly productive PM1 newsprint line for Ecco’s new recycled newsprint mill in Teeside which is to be started up in the first quarter of 2009. The Letter of Intent includes an order to start engineering work.” But there it all grinds to a halt, it seems, although a spokesman for Ecco (not to be confused with ECO, a suffix brand name for supercalendered – ask me later — publishing grades from the embattled Norske Skog of Scandinavia) said in May of this year that “It’s taking longer than it might have, but these sort of investments are a marathon, not a sprint.”

 

But this author certainly doesn’t see any paper rolling out of the North-East during the first quarter of 2009, if at all. Metso are keeping tight-lipped too. When there is massive unemployment and lay-offs announced on a daily basis in the U.K., perhaps Ecco Newsprint should ask Britain’s Prime Minister to step up to the mark with guaranteed funding so the scheme can press ahead, with all the guaranteed jobs the build, and new mill even once completed, will provide, as well as the environmental benefits of recycling waste newspapers and magazines. Perhaps Mr. G. Brown or Mr. A. Darling (both of Downing Street, London SW1) should visit http://www.ecconewsprint.co.uk/default.htm for ideas. Of course if ‘Two Jags’ was at the helm……

 

And then there was one, and that one is Papierfabrik Palm’s English adventure which is storming ahead on an old sugar beet factory site in Kings Lynn, in Norfolk. All credit to Dr. Palm and his people for sticking to their guns and forging ahead with this wonderful off-shoot of their recycled newsprint and packaging papers based company. Their mill at Eltmann in central Germany currently produces 520,000 tonnes per year of high-grade re-cycled newsprint from waste newspapers and magazines. Kings Lynn will house a 10.6 metre (trimmed width) machine producing 400,000 tonnes per annum. And I mean that, the Kings Lynn mill WILL house that machine, the ‘topping-out’ ceremony for the buildings is scheduled for December the 11^th. of THIS year, entry by invitation only though, so that’s me and you out. But at least we can go to http://www.palmpaper.co.uk/index.php?call=home and look from a distance. There’s even a pdf gallery of progress so far worth checking out.

 

One out of three isn’t bad for a country officially in recession, AND there’s to be a new packaging grades mill built in Lancashire by SAICA of Spain. But that’s another story.

Coated paper’s coated paper, right?

No-one has taken me to task for my earlier blog comment that “..coated’s coated after all” in relation to the wonderful Mr Dermot Smurfit having a potential interest in the real-art coated business Papierfabrik Scheufelen GmbH after his brush with blade coated Fineblade (oh all right, FAB as well, but I reckon that brand killed-off the coated business at Snodland!) when Smurfit Paper owned Townsend Hook mill in Kent. My rash statement really was a baited ‘hook’ because of the whole real-art coated graphic papers subject.

 

Our cousins across the pond in North America have no concept of real-art graphical printing papers (unless they import them from Europe). Over here, throughout Europe and Scandinavia, the quality of a coated sheet has always (ninety-nine times out of a hundred) been decided by the depth of the final coating, and that it had to be applied off-machine, and usually made with extra special ingredients. In The States the quality of a grade has formerly been determined by it’s (G.E.) brightness, and the brighter a sheet, apparently, the better the quality.

 

With the addition of O.B.A.’s/F.W.A.’s (that’s Optical Brightening Agents and Fluorescent Whitening Agents to you) a grade’s brightness can go through the roof, without necessarily improving it’s quality. Then along came genetically modified chalk, P.C.C. (precipitated calcium carbonate) and even the use of titanium dioxide instead of calcium carbonate partly or completely, and all of this increases the whiteness (different to brightness but that’s for another day) but still did not automatically make a grade fit to be called ‘Real Art’.

 

As previously discussed, Job Parilux, the Phoenix range from Scheufelen, and Consort Royal from Donside in Scotland, were the market leaders. This was not to dismiss the excellent Real Art sheets Idéal from Arjo, Larius from Burgo, or Zanders Ikono, though I’m still not convinced of the latter as a real art grade.

 

Donside Paper in Scotland shut up shop in August 2001, after various owners and prospective owners in it’s dieing days, but still had considerable support from U.K. merchants Howard Smith Paper Group, who bought the Consort Royal brand name and took it to Germany to ask Dr. Scheufelen if he could merchant label their real-art for HSPG.

 

The timing was a little difficult because at about that time Scheufelen had bought-out it’s French competitor Societé Job, not for it’s fag papers (and for my American readers, that’s papers for cigarettes not homosexuals) but because of the greatly loved Job Parilux Real Art paper that they made. Subsequently the Germans closed the French mill and took all the business home with them – though what became of the cigarette papers business I know not. I have a beautiful 1920’s art nouveau poster for Job cigarette papers on my wall, and one wonders how Job got into coated papers…. I must try and look into that.

 

But with all of the Scheufelen machines stopped, albeit temporarily one hopes, and Zanders not knowing whether they are going to belong to ArjoWiggins, M-Real again, and now SAPPI, or will M-Real retain them for their new Special Papers Division, at least Burgo and Arjo have their feet firmly planted in the Real Art soil. Or have they?

 

Today, fantastic papers are available in the ‘prestige premium coated’ bracket, which used to be just a percentage point or two further down the ‘quality’ scale than the Real Art’s, yet are more competitively priced. With these grades, usually a very high quality base sheet is on-machine coated for the ‘sub’ layer, so something like the former G-Print is created (different to the new G-Print). Then the paper is re-reeled as is customary, and then played through a much slower running off-machine coater with two coating stations, and a coating colour (forgive the use of correct terminology, but it is called coating colour even if it’s only white!). Post-coating finishing will provide either a gloss, satin, or matt finish. And boy oh boy, those grades print just as well as a real art sheet.

 

Which grades? Well, take a look at Idéal from Arjo, and the more recent addition to their range: Absolut (also an excellent vodka but Stora had used the link years ago on a promotion for Chromoboard I think it was, so Arjo didn’t follow suit); Larius from Burgo; Arctic from Arctic; Accent from Vida; Condat from Condat; Creator from Creator (no, I’m joking, just to see if you are paying attention!) Creator from Torraspapel; Garda from Garda (yes it is!) which is an exquisite sheet of paper for anybody’s money; Magno from SAPPI, and so on and so on. Look on www.paperbuyersonline.com for a full choice, but make sure you mark the Europe radio button before you enter “premium quality graphical printing” and have fun from there. You will be astounded.

 

So no, not all coated papers are the same, and as for Powerflute OY taking over Scheufelen, I wish Mr Smurfit and his friends every success, I really do. I admire his business acumen, and if anyone can turn an ailing mill around, he can (witness Pankaboard and Savon Sellu if you have any doubts!). Mr. S, I take my metaphorical hat off to you.

Rip Van Winkel Awakes

Rip Van Winkel Awakes

 

I have been forced to be out of touch with the Paper Industry (still worthy of those initial capital letters) for three and a half months – and no, it was not a prison sentence! – where I was stuck in a cyber-vacuum and unable to keep in-touch with what had been going on in the trade since, well, really, the middle of July 2008. Then there was the usual catch-up period, and now I just look back on what has occurred, what is still happening, and what is about to happen (to say naught of the fallout from the first two of these) with shock and dismay.

 

What have the paper companies of Europe, nay, The World, got themselves into? There are multiple-choice answers, and for many of the mills and merchants, the boxes for more than one is going to be ticked. Of course, smug people could say “Well, I saw that coming, I’m surprised they didn’t!’, but the truth is, no-one really has the right to be smug when there are so many in the industry feeling the pain.

 

As my American friends would say, “Where to start?” For a long time now, the vast majority of pulp and paper mills have been hurting because of the massive hike in oil and purchased power. The same can be said of the chemical suppliers that furnish the industry, so their prices went up as well. The cost of living went up and up, largely on the back of rising fuel and food prices, and so staff costs went up. Imported timber (especially from Russia) went through the roof, hurting Finnish pulp producers and forcing skywards the factory gate prices for their finished (no pun intended) product, to the dreaded $1000 tonne for NBSK, and then up from there.

 

The cost of borrowing money soared, so if a mill was tied-in to a contract for improvements, expansion, or even just repair, they had to borrow at often ridiculous rates of interest if they had no money of their own. If I sat here and thought longer, the list would grow accordingly, but for now it’s enough to say that the Paper Industry, from pulp to merchant (and even printer) was already in a desperate situation.

 

Therefore, when the economic bubble burst internationally, our industry was not exempt from the effects! If of course a company was already in a pretty bad way before the global economic crisis, then they were the ones who felt it most and had to take the most drastic action, ranging from selling-off arms and legs, to committing suicide and closing up shop completely. A good example would be M-real (and I do not highlight them out of malice even if they did close one of my local fine paper mills and sell another for making cardboard box papers — though none the worse for that).

 

M-real had been heading for melt-down for some time, and had been shedding mills two or three a year for a couple of years. Then they decided to relieve themselves of their Zanders Reflex mill and it’s 4 papermaking machines and associated brands to ArjoWiggins, which was something of an unexpected new master. Truth to tell, it was not an ‘easy’ fit for Arjo, because, apart from anything else, the carbonless paper produced by Zanders (Autocopy) is a market-place competitor for that produced by Arjo (Idem) to the extent that the European Competition Authority said “No way José” – apparently unaware of the huge slice of the carbonless market in Europe enjoyed by such worthy competitive products as Giroform (Mitsubishi Hi-Tech), Reacto (Koehler), and Eurocalco (Torraspapel). Tracing papers would have been another conflict too, with Gateway and Spectral/T2000. But the E.C. put the mockers on it, just at a time when Arjo were beginning to see the way the financial world was about to turn, and I think, in truth, Arjo were pretty pleased to be out of the deal, likewise some of their own mills that might have been frightened for their future if the deal had gone ahead.

 

However, Arjo, via their merchant arm, Antalis, did buy M-reals merchant business, though again the Euro-Burghers of Brussels or Strasbourg or whichever one of the two E.C. government offices they were occupying at that time (can you really believe that they still up-sticks and move from one city to another hundreds of miles away on a regular basis? Or that the 27 European Commissioners who are there to make sure that the European Treaties on this and that are upheld, have a staff of twenty-four thousand, yes twenty-four followed by three zeros! Europhobe, moi?) that the Euro Burghers said “Non” unless Arjo sold-off one of M-real’s British merchants, Premier Paper. Arjo found a willing and worthy buyer in the family owned Beswick Paper Group, wherein Premier fits very nicely thank you, and should do well.

 

But this European Union stop on selling to Arjo was not to stop M-real in their cost-cutting efforts, and the M-real Graphical Printing Papers Division is to be bought by SAPPI, well, kind of, because M-real still want to keep Reflex and Gohrsmühle but not the coated papers that they produce (?) which I guess means that SAPPI will pick-up Chromolux, and bring them (SAPPI) back into the cast-coated market, after they got out of it when they sold the Astralux brand to Favini of Italy a few years ago.

 

Just for a moment, while on our European Grand Tour, let’s stop-off and take a quick look at Favini, and oh dear, they are in desperate trouble themselves. Both of their plants in The Netherlands have been sold off or closed, when the prospective new owners of Meersen Mill (rumoured to be Cordenons of Italy), offered a price too low for Favini’s liquidators that they said something to the effect of shove it where the sun don’t shine, and closed the place down themselves! But the loss of the Apeldoorn and Meersen mills was not enough to strengthen Favini, and it looks as if a ‘new’ company (Cordeneons and Orlando) are set to buy Favini’s mills in Italy, at Crusillano and Rossano Veneto.

 

Now it gets even more complicated because Cordenons once had a mill in Belgium that made fine papers on one machine, and one-side coated papers on another (mostly for labels and posters). In 2005 Cordenons decided to sell the latter machine and the space it took-up at the plant at Malmédy to a new company called Adapack which had taken over the Souché labels paper plant in France from International Paper (and we’ll meet I.P. again in a moment). All this happened three years ago, but Adapack went belly up early in 2008 and Cordenons bought the label paper machine back from the liquidators (well, it was just sitting there in their mill anyway!) while Souché enjoyed a management buy-out and might, just might, still make it. As for Malmedy, well, opinion differs as to whether Cordenons ever did start the ex-Adapack, ex-Cordenons machine again, but it was not running when they stopped the fine paper machine for the summer shut, and decided not to restart either machine, possibly ever again. This would make sense if they need the money they can raise from selling the Belgian site and machines, and use the funds for their stake in the Favini Italian enterprise.

 

Favini I mentioned earlier with regard to Astralux, a cast-coated grade, the brand that they bought from SAPPI who wanted to walk away from that grade, to devote all their activities at their Blackburn Mill to quality coated graphical printing paper. SAPPI had always given a glowing report for their Blackburn, Lancashire, U.K. mill, but guess what? Yep, it’s to go. Some watchers were very, very surprised at the news — after all, SAPPI had been good masters and had spent a bundle on the mill to keep it up to date, and this was reflected in the quality of the papers it produced and the place they held in the market. But those same people saw how it all made sense when it was announced at roughly the same time – which some felt in very bad taste — that SAPPI was to take over the coated papers business from M-real’s Graphical Papers Division.

 

With the closure of SAPPI Blackburn, SAPPI removes itself completely from British papermaking, especially since M-real had finally closed their British papermaking operations with the sale of Kemsley Mill to D.S. Smith, world-beating recycled fibre plant et al. Now here’s something crazy, part of the M-real deal with D.S.Smith calls for the mill to continue to produce 100% waste recycled graphical-paper quality pulp, ship it to M-Real Alizay mill in France, where it will be made into the office papers that used to be made at Kemsley. Some of these papers (the lions share initially) will be shipped back to the U.K. where the brand (Evolve) is very well established. The main merchant customer for Evolve would in the past have been the M-real merchant group, including McNaughton and Premier, but now the former is owned by Antalis, and the latter by Beswick, both of whom have established brands of their own already, one wonders what future there is for Evolve. (An inside story says that M-real have still been unable to offload the site of their former Sittingbourne Fine Paper mill because part of the deeds for the site state that because of the low-lying position of Sittingbourne, the site is responsible for the constant pumping and use/disposal of groundwater to prevent Sittingbourne high street from flooding on a regular/permanent basis. That’s fine if you are a paper-maker and use much and plenty water, but a housing estate, or a Tesco’s, or anything else, hmmm, it makes you wonder.)

 

M-real sold-off their French mill at Pont-Sainte-Maxence (formerly Mo-Do P.S.M.) a few years ago, but it has struggled ever since. I do so hope they can keep going. Most of the other former Aussedat Rey mills have gone to the wall, and even Papeteries du Lana has been bought-out by Hahnemuhle, who are no longer anything to do with Schleicher & Schuell who went to the venerable Whatman paper company of Maidstone, Kent, a couple of years ago. Ah yes, but because Whatman’s speciality is now  in clinical filtration products (and has been for years by the way which is why they bought S & S, their German competitors), they were a natural acquisition for G.E. Medical of the U.S.A. and there is talk of the historically important Whatman Springfield Mill at Maidstone being sold for what the Americans call ‘real estate’.

 

A mill of similar historical precedent was William Sommerville of Scotland, which was merged with the business of Culter Guard Bridge paper mill some years ago, I think in the days when James River, again of the U.S.A., owned them both. Then in more recent times under the management buy-out company, Curtis Fine Papers, production was centred on the one mill at Guardbridge, and now that has gone, in the blink of an eye. It was weird, because at one moment, May 2008, Curtis were announcing a wonderful new antimicrobial paper created in league with Xerox, that could kill 99.9% of any bacteria on it’s surface (the paper’s, not your photocopier) within six hours of contact, an absolute boon for hospitals and clinics, and just the latest in a line of innovative new products. Yet in July the Curtis Fine Paper administrators laid-off 180 staff at Guardbridge and closed the mill.

 

And so it goes on.

 

When I first joined the commercial papers business in the U.K. there were three grades which were revered as the best of the best, real-art, European produced graphical printing papers: Job Parilux (French), Scheufelen Phoenix (German), and Consort (Scottish). Donside at that time was part of U.K. Papers Ltd (ex.Bowaters) and closed down; Job Parilux was bought out by Scheufelen and production moved to Germany, closing the French mill, and the crash of 2008 took Scheufelen down with it after hundreds of years of family ownership, well, since 1855 anyway!

 

But all is not lost. In the midst of all this gloom and doom there is hope. Rather strangely Scheufelen has been bought by a company called Powerflute OY of Finland. This same Powerflute bought the Savon Sallu corrugated case materials mill (fluting paper) from M-real (yes, them again) several years ago, and have made such a great job of it they have the money to buy Scheufelen. Highest quality coated papers and corrugated case materials (CCM) look like strange bed-fellows, but not so much when you learn that one of the key investors in Powerflute OY (the Powerflute mill in Finland has now reverted to it’s former Savon Sallu name) is none other than the dynamic Dermot Smurfit, who a) built-up the Jefferson Smurfit Group which eventually merged with Kappa, and b) was a key player in the Smufitt purchase of England’s Townsend Hook mill, which until recent years, made CCM and quality coated graphical printing papers. Further, Mr. Smurfit’s portfolio of mills also includes Pankaboard of Finland, another ailing mill that has been turned-around. Fineblade was no Parilux, but coated paper is coated paper, right? Oh dear, I deserve to be shot at dawn for that remark, which, for the time being will be my last, other than to mourn the loss of Matussière et Forest of France and its mills Des Échelles, Papeterie de Voiron, Papeteries de Lancey, Meylan 50, 60 and 70. Will it never end?

Oh yes, while I still remember, International Paper. They have a mill in Scotland, Thomas Tait’s mill, and they are going to close it! You’ll be pleased to read, words fail me!

Trees verses Paper: You Decide!

Cut Down On Paper And Save Trees

 

There is of course an element of truth in the above remark, in the same way that if you stop breathing then there will be (slightly) more air to go around. The basis of this greatly over-used maxim really treats that trees are cut down to make paper, which is correct, for a given value of both ‘trees’ and ‘correct’.

 

Paper, in its many guises, from that which you might reach for to blow your nose on when you have a cold; to your daily newspaper; the vast and varied wallpaper available at your local B & Q (or wherever – I have no interest to declare for that particular D.I.Y. emporium, it’s just that the name has become generic for such places here in the U.K.); to the cardboard box that your new 42” plasma screen HD ready television arrived in; to the microwaveable box that holds your ‘oven ready’ evening meal that you have to partake of because you spent so long reading the idiot guide that came with the new TV, that you haven’t time to cook any more!

 

Paper is all around us, and in everyday use, sometimes without realising it (what do you think of the woodgrain effect on your office desk or laminated flooring? I’ll bet you a pound to a pinch of snuff that it’s printed on paper which is then bonded to a wood substitute to look like ‘the real thing’) or simply taken for granted. Virtually all paper is made from naturally occurring cellulose fibres (linear polysaccharide of beta (1→4) linked D-glucose units, typified by the chemical symbol C₆H₁₀O₅ -n for the scientifically minded) and the greatest source of this material around the globe is naturally occurring wood, i.e. trees. Oh dear, already some readers are beginning to get steamed-up with images in their minds of the destruction of the tropical rain forest, but please, stay with me.

 

The second most important source of these cellulose fibres is recycled waste paper and board, which can be anything from yesterdays newspapers (no longer permitted for the wrapping of fish and chips in the U.K.) and that cardboard box that your 42” plasma T.V. came in that we met earlier. Also there are the ‘trade’ waste sources of recyclable paper and board, e.g. waste from printing companies, over-issue newspapers and magazines; plus there’s the endless barrage of ‘junk mail’ that daily falls (or should that be ‘pours’) through you letterbox, which you put to one side ready for your next trip to the municipal recycling centre, along with your empty wine bottles, baked bean tin (well steel actually) cans and lager cans (aluminium). Some Local Authorities do some of this work for you and have fortnightly collections of these valuable recyclable materials, but from a papermakers perspective there are dangers within that enterprise, of which more if you see me after.

 

There are many other naturally occurring sources of cellulose fibre across the globe, but their usage is dependant on locality, end-product, and guaranteed availability. So for the sake of this article, let us go back to the most general source, wood, or better yet, trees. Trees grow on virtually every continent on Earth (Antarctica excepted), and are of many and varied types – some yet to be discovered and identified. Of course, in The West, if you are doing one of those word association tests and the psychiatrist says ‘tree’ you might think of a majestic Oak, or a Horse Chestnut, or a Willow dangling its branches into the slowly drifting, crystal-clear waters of a country stream. Maybe even a pine tree, the Larch, the mighty Scots Pine.

 

If however your inquisitor was to say ‘tree for making paper’ in our metaphorical word association test, your mind will conjure-up those images of huge bulldozers ripping trees from the tropical forest, to the sound of huge chain-saws and their horrid rise and fall ‘burring’, drowning-out the shrieks of the displaced Gibbons and Orang-Utans, basically, the rape of Sumatra (ten years ago it would have been Amazonia but the focus has shifted though the problem in S.America remains and if anything has worsened!)

 

As far as making paper and board are concerned, the vast majority of trees ripped from the tropical rain forest are of little or no use for papermaking. They are hardwoods, harder even than Birch, Beech, even Eucalyptus, which (along with a few others) are what papermakers think of as hard woods. Tropical hardwoods, such as Mahogany, Walnut, Teak, Ipe, etc. are too hard, and can be up to 120 years old in those visions you have in mind, and to get that old they have grown relatively slowly and their cellulose fibres are short and very densely packed, which is what makes them hard woods. This is ideal for furniture, wall panelling, real wooden ‘parquet’ floors, and many other uses where quite often a non-tropical hardwood timber would do just as well, but hey, these tropical forest trees are just there, waiting to be ripped out of the ground or hacked down, anyway. Plus the Government can be ‘persuaded’ to give you a licence to level a given 5000 hectare patch of forest if the country is under the watchful eye of some bothersome NGO or bunch of tree-hugging hippies. And if no-one is looking, let’s go and cut them down anyway and hope we get away with it.

 

Those last few sentences were an attempt at irony, because even as someone from the paper industry at large, I have been a conservationist for longer than I have had pulp running through my veins, and conservation and papermaking are not oxymorons, in fact, the paper industry has been responsible for supporting and expanding much of the valuable work of organisations such as FSC, PEFC and SFI (see footnotes), work that identifies the source of the timber so long as it has been ethically ‘farmed’, from a conservation perspective, and NOT ripped from the loving embrace of an Amazonian or Borneo tribesman.

 

Trees used in papermaking are from the temperate regions of the globe, though there are pine and eucalyptus plantations in South America where once stood tropical rain forest, but it was destroyed for timber, or farming land for cattle rearing (so where did you think your Fray Bentos corned beef came from? Fray Bentos is a place, not just another trade name) or cash crops, all of which failed after a year or two because the soil is basically so poor (think of the roots of tropical trees that are so near the surface and spread over such a vast area), the rains came and washed away what little soil there was, and areas the size of Wales (slightly bigger than Whales which some wag complained of in a lecture on the subject I gave some years ago, saying, “Well, yes, I know hunting Whales is bad, but they’re not that big, and the Amazon Rain Forest is huge, so that can’t make a lot of difference!”) de-forested areas the size of Wales each year looked like turning into desert.

 

Then some Sylviculturalists (that’s Tree Scientists to you) came along and said “Why don’t we plant trees there that we can use, crop within just ten years or so, replant, and crop again, and so on? That way the soil gets enriched, we get trees for timber and papermaking, and a degree of habitat restoration is achieved. Plus, for every so many ‘farmed’ trees that have a relatively short cropping cycle, we will also plant ‘X’ many tropical hardwood trees, and even create ‘islands’ of such trees and ‘tree highways’ between them so the wildlife can resettle.” And here’s the ‘funny’ part, these tree lovers were not from WWF, Friends of the Earth, or Greenpeace – they were all too busy wringing their hands and weeping bitter tears rather than putting forward recovery plans — these ‘radical’ scientists were from pulp and paper companies! It worked too. Aside from the illegal logging that still goes on regardless in South America, dependant on whether the country in question is run by a questionable government, or whether or not the native Indians have shot the loggers first, aside from that, ‘tree farming’, inspected, approved and labelled by people like FSC, PEFC or SFI, is an environmentally and financially rewarding enterprise in South America.

 

In the Far East (Indonesia, Malaysia, Borneo et al) the destruction of the rain forest and all the unbearable habitat and environmental problems that it brings, has nothing to do with the pulp and paper industry, although there is a question mark over that word ‘nothing’. Asia has a burgeoning population, a growing economy, and a huge demand for paper products. While most pulp and paper companies from that part of the World do not commission the felling of tropical forest, they do buy the wood from so-called middle-men, and thus they can be said to have ‘sap on their hands’ if not blood.

 

But we in The West are equally to blame because we continue to buy paper and goods made from paper and board that originates in these places (especially Indonesia), and thinking back to the cattle ranches that replaced the Amazon Rainforest, look for something called Palm Oil in the ingredients/contents of the products you buy each week at your local supermarket. Much of the areas denuded of tropical (hardwood) rainforest are being replanted with relatively fast growing palm trees, for the sake of the oil that is extracted from the ‘fruit’. Further, with the worry over climate change and the (debateable) effects that carbon-dioxide plays, there is an international demand for bio-fuels. For bio-fuels read diesel mixed with palm oil, and then read the article in the UK’s Guardian Newspaper, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/apr/04/energy.indonesia. It will break your heart, and stop you worrying over-much about not using paper, and hopefully persuade you to only buy paper and paper products (and likewise timber and timber products) that carry the FSC, PEFC, or SFI logos, to say naught about dropping the pressure on governments to promote bio-fuels and go for Hydrogen Fuel-Cell technology instead!

 

Footnote:

FSC – Forest Stewardship Council:

FSC is an international, non-governmental organisation dedicated to promoting responsible management of the world’s forests. It was founded in 1993 in response to public concern about deforestation and demand for a trustworthy wood-labelling scheme. There are national working groups in 28 countries. It is supported by NGOs including WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Woodland Trust.  www.fsc.org

 

PEFC – Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes:

The PEFC Council is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation, founded in 1999 which promotes sustainably managed forests through independent third party certification. The PEFC provides an assurance mechanism to purchasers of wood and paper products that they are promoting the sustainable management of forests.
PEFC is a global umbrella organisation for the assessment of and mutual recognition of national forest certification schemes developed in a multi-stakeholder process. These national schemes build upon the inter-governmental processes for the promotion of sustainable forest management, a series of on-going mechanisms supported by 149 governments in the world covering 85% of the world’s forest area.   www.pefc.org

 

 

SFI (Sustainable Forest Initiative):

SFI, Inc. is a non-profit organization devoted to improving sustainable forest management in the US and Canada through the Sustainable Forestry Initiative program. The SFI program is now fully independent. On January 1, 2007, a new, fully independent organization, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, Inc. (SFI, Inc.) was created to direct all elements of the SFI® program.
This independence solidifies the SFI program’s strong market position as one of the world’s leading forest certification programs.

The multi-stakeholder Board of Directors of SFI, Inc. is the sole governing body over the SFI Standard and all aspects of the program, including chain of custody certification and labelling, marketing and promotion. The diversity of the board members reflects the variety of interests in the forestry community. Board representatives come from environmental and conservation organizations, public officials, professional and academic groups, forest products industry, independent logging professionals and forest landowners. This balance ensures that the SFI Program protects the economic, environmental and social needs of our forests and communities.  www.aboutsfi.org

 

There are many other initiatives aimed at the paper industry, from the EU Eco Label (EU Flower), the Nordic Swan, the German Blue Angel, the British NAPM Recycled Mark, and the European Grade Finders Recycled Content scoring system.

New U.K. Recycled Newsprint Mills

Three new newsprint mills are planned for the U.K., all using recycled fibre. This begs the questions: 1) Is there a market for all the production; 2) Is there going to be enough raw material (old and over-issue newspapers and magazines) for the P.C.W. fibre needed to feed these mills?

 

Who are the contenders? AYLESFORD NEWSPRINT want to build a new machine at their site near Maidstone in Kent where they currently produce approx. 400,000 tonnes of Renaissance brand newsprint on two machines, and it is Aylesford’s intention that a new ‘state-of-the-art’ machine will replace the aging PM13 which at 5.4metres wide and a run-speed of 900M per minute, is dwarfed by the newer PM14’s 9.4M width and 1680M per minute (roughly 68 miles per hour!). That makes a whole lot of sense to this author anyway. Overall, Aylesford’s proud boast is that they currently, at 400KT produce 1% of the World’s newsprint, and 4% of the European requirement, yet the U.K. as a nation still imports 60% of its newsprint requirement.

 

Ramsey Hampton, doyen of Aylesford Newsprint’s ‘new’ mill and machine back in the 1990’s, now heads-up a team called ECCO who plan to build a 400KT recycled newsprint mill in Geordieland, and has recently signed the lease for 125 years use of land for the mill and related infrastructure. Mr. Hampton, a thoroughly nice fellow, has a habit of making things happen, and there is no doubt that the new mill will be a great success. The North-East of England is crying-out for redevelopment, and the area has a huge population to provide the workforce and the raw materials (waste and over-issue news & magazines) needed for this exciting adventure.

 

Not so ‘home grown’, German paper maker Palm Paper have obtained planning permission for their anticipated 400KT mill at Kings Lynn in Norfolk, on the site of an old sugar beet factory, and subject to a European recession (when America sneezes Europe catches a cold) the mill is very likely to go ahead.

 

But the figures quoted above, which will add over a million tonnes of recycled newsprint to the U.K.’s current production of 1.1 million tonnes, may make the U.K. self-sufficient in newsprint (current demand estimated at 2.3 million tonnes), but taking Palm’s mill/machine as an example, to produce 550,000 of fully recycled newsprint, you need to pour in to the other end of the system 630,000 tonnes of ‘waste’ paper. Do we have an additional one-and-a-quarter million tonnes of waste and over-issue news and magazines available to feed these 3 new mills?

 This subject is to be continued………

Coloured paper: what’s the problem?

The latest news that FAVINI are in trouble, especially in The Netherlands at Apledoorn and Meerssen, draws attention to the diminishing list of mills manufacturing coloured offset and coloured office printing papers in Europe, and begs the question ‘Why?’
The Klippan Red Dwarf that gobbled-up Inveresk Caldwell’s Mill in Scotland (which had previously incorporated Weir’s Mill nearby, though in truth more for its recycled fibre plant than its ability to produce coloured papers, and Fulmar and Repeat brands), made a play for Maresquel Mill in France when that mill was in the ownership of International Paper, but later withdrew.

I.P. closed Maresquel in October 2006 themselves. M-Real closed Pont Sainte Maxence (previously known as MoDo PSM) also in France, at about the same time.
While a certain Jan of Sweden was empire building, East Lancs Paper in the U.K. closed, but it wasn’t his fault, he was nowhere near, but Mölndal in Sweden was, and in the devastation left behind when the Klippan Empire imploded, Klippan Mill itself faltered and looked set to go too. It was saved at the last moment and is now flourishing under the new Vida Paper, but with no coloured paper production in sight.
SAPPI in Great Britain closed the historic Apsley Mill in Hertfordshire, and Curtis Fine Papers closed what used to be William Sommerville’s Dalmore Mill in Scotland, though we are assured that production was simply transferred to their Guard Bridge Mill. Although not a coloured paper mill in the traditional sense, ArjoWiggins also closed their Buckland Mill at Dover, famous for the Conqueror brand, which was available in tint’s, so that sort-of counts for this discussion too!

Olives Mill, though not quite so recent as those listed above, was yet another coloured paper mill with a fine range of well respected products that was there one moment, and gone the next! Garnett’s have gone to India for their production but maintain conversion in the U.K., while Thomas Tait’s Mill in Scotland (who remembers Captain Copier?) is now a white only mill in the safe hands of International Paper.

International Paper also saw the break-up of France’s Aussedat Rey Group, with coloured paper mill closures, and independence for others, some who have struggled (i.e. Lana) regardless of superlative papers to offer. Likewise Jeand’heurs who made beautiful low weight coloured papers, gone but not forgotten.

Yet there are still coloured graphical printing paper mills in Europe, making really good papers, e.g. Clariana in Spain, Fedrigoni and Cordenons in Italy, Arjowiggins in France and England, Cropper in England, Tullis Russell and Curtis in Scotland, etc. etc. But by the same token there are more ‘lost’ than retained.

I know the maxim that the last ones in a diminishing market are the ones who get all the business, but who would have thought that coloured graphical printing (including coloured office papers) was a diminishing market?