Cascades to Close Recycled Pulp Mill in Maine
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According to a report yesterday (June 22) by The Bangor Daily News (Bangor, Me., USA) Cascades (Kingsley Falls, Que., Canada) plans to close its deinked pulp mill in Auburn on July 15, laying off 45 employees at the facility that uses recycled paper to make packaging and tissue products.
In announcing the closure, Cascades said the mill had low potential to integrate with its other operations as the overall market has dwindled for P&W paper and deinked, or recycled, pulp.
Pictured above: An employee prepares to make nozzle tweak adjustment on one of the fiber recycling machine's components.
"Despite major efforts to optimize in the past year, the situation at the mill remained extremely difficult. Therefore, we are unfortunately forced to cease operations," Luc Langevin, president and COO of Cascade’s specialty papers group, said in a news release.
The company plans to end production at the Auburn mill on July 8, and will close July 15.
The company said it would explore relocating staff in Auburn to other operations and would assist employees to find new jobs. Cascades, has about 90 production facilities in North America and Europe, with about 11,000 employees.
Its Auburn plant is the only producer of deinked pulp in the Northeast. The company did not say what it will do with the property following the closure.
"Cascades wishes to extend its sincere thanks to all Cascades Auburn Fiber employees for their loyalty since 1998 and for all of the efforts made in an attempt to save the plant," the news release stated. "The company is counting on them to serve customers until closing."
