THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 5, 1994 TAG: 9412050236
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, BUSINESS WEEKLY STAFF
DATELINE: FRANKLIN LENGTH: Long : 142 lines
The objectives at Union Camp Corp.'s new $108 million plant differ little from those at most companies:
Carefully manage inventory, line up dependable suppliers, get the supplies at a decent price.
What's different about Union Camp's new mill, scheduled to begin producing paper today for the first time, is the nature of the raw materials.
The success of the plant, which removes ink from scrap paper, depends on its access to waste. And not just any waste.
Union Camp needs high-quality white paper. Lots of it. To be exact, 160,000 tons a year. That's like a mountain of more than 100 million used copies of the South Hampton Roads phone book.
``If there's a risk, it's getting something you can convert into a good, white, clean sheet of paper,'' plant manager David Breed said.
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Why would anyone invest $108 million in something that runs on a product routinely buried in landfills?
The answer is a lesson in marketing, not to mention environmental manners.
Union Camp's planners know there is a demand for laser printer and writing paper with a high recycled content. And the company is calculating that its new plant will create a market for used office paper.
Businesses often enter new markets where demand appears strong, but Union Camp is one of the first major papermakers to try to make large amounts of high-quality paper out of waste.
Union Camp, the Wayne, N.J.-based papermaker with $3 billion in annual revenues, said U.S. companies discard 11 million tons of office paper a year.
``The reason it hasn't been collected is there hasn't been a use for it,'' said Richard Venditti, Union Camp director of recycled fibers. ``So you're simultaneously building the demand as you're building the plants.''
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The deinking plant, built in 18 months, may take Union Camp from the status of villain to hero in the environmental world.
The effort is environmentally significant because paper companies balked for years at putting large percentages of recycled fibers into high-quality office paper. Paper companies argued that more than 10 percent recycled fiber would result in inferior paper.
Now, Union Camp promises a top-grade paper with 25 percent recycled fiber. That's 5 percent more recycled fiber content than the federal government requires when it buys paper.
Breed candidly admits that part of the reason Union Camp set up the recycled fiber plant was to tap into the federal government's paper purchasing.
``First of all, I think you can make a high-quality paper out of 100 percent recycled fiber,'' said Lauren Blum, staff scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund. ``It's been done - the difference with Union Camp is it's being done in mass quantities.''
Union Camp's fine-paper mill in Franklin, built in 1938, has been a scourge of the environmental community. This summer, for instance, the Washington-based Public Interest Research Group said the 480,000 pounds of toxic materials Union Camp dumped into the Blackwater River in 1992 made it Virginia's second-worst water polluter.
``I think we danced a little far apart at first,'' Breed said of Union Camp and environmental groups. ``We don't exactly have the same agenda. But the environmental ethic has been preached to us. We have a permit to run the mill - not a right to run the mill.''
Environmentalists now point at Union Camp not as a company defiling the environment, but as one taking innovative steps that help save trees.
``The thing that's important about Franklin,'' Blum said, ``is it shows you can do well for the bottom line and the environment at the same time.''
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The decision to build the deinking plant came about gradually.
The problem was not so much getting consumers accustomed to using recycled paper: People have been doing that voluntarily for several years, and besides, technology has made it nearly impossible to tell recycled paper from paper made straight from trees.
The question comes from the other end. Union Camp needs 160,000 tons of recycled office paper a year to keep the plant busy. Will office workers put enough paper into those tiny bins next to their desks to supply Union Camp with 11 tons every 30 minutes?
As recycled fibers director, Venditti's job is to make sure the de-inking plant has enough wastepaper. Venditti said the amount of office paper in the United States being recycled will increase sharply now that paper mills have decided to step forward and offer a market for recycled paper.
Union Camp, by taking the risk of jumping into the fine-paper recycling game early, is a step ahead of at least two of its competitors. International Paper and Boise Cascade are expected to start up recycled fiber plants next year in Alabama.
``I think when they stepped out, they really took a bold position,'' Blum said of Union Camp. ``Things were very different two years ago when they started this, but now I think they're kind of in the catbird's seat.''
Venditti comes armed with numbers that he said show Union Camp should be able to get enough paper. Nearly half of the 11 million tons of office paper used in the United States each year is thrown away within 500 miles of Franklin.
The going rate for high-quality used white paper is $300 per ton, with lower-quality office waste going for $200 per ton.
At first, Union Camp doesn't mind bringing in paper from 500 miles away, but eventually it wants to have a network of suppliers closer to home.
``Initially we're going out further,'' Breed said. ``Ultimately, transportation cost is an issue. As there's more and more supply of wastepaper, we hope we can shrink that area.''
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Once the old wastepaper gets to the plant, it is stacked in 1,500-pound bundles.
Union Camp has stockpiled used paper since February, and its 72-person work force for the new plant is in place. Breed said it will take 18 people to feed paper into the recycling operation, and the company plans to use four shifts of workers to keep the plant running 24 hours a day.
Every 30 minutes, 11 tons of paper, every 30 minutes, will go onto a conveyor and ``into like a giant Waring blender,'' as Venditti describes it. The early mixture is 18 parts paper to 82 parts water.
The blending separates the paper into individual fibers, then more water is added. The recycling process will use about 2 million gallons of water a day to make 300 tons of a deinked pulp that is two-thirds water and one-third fiber. Another 100 tons of inky sludge will be buried at Union Camp's landfill every day.
Heat the pulp mill once wasted will be pumped over to the deinking plant to heat the paper and water solution. The recycled fibers will move along a mile-long conveyor from the recycling plant to be used at Union Camp's fine-paper mill.
At the mill, post-consumer waste will be turned into a pre-consumer product known as paper. And, if Union Camp's gamble pays off, the whole process will begin again. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo on cover
Plant manager David Breed
Color photos by Joseph John Kotlowski
Above Left: a 12,000-foot conveyor belt transports paper at Union
Camp's new deinking plant in Franklin.
Above: Worker Bill Champer marks a stack of paper at the mill.
Right: Union Camp has stockpiled used paper since February, and its
72-person work force is in place. The plant is scheduled to begin
making paper today.
KEYWORDS: RECYCLING PAPER MANUFACTURE PULP AND PAPER INDUSTRY by CNB