According to a report this past week by Anbinh Paper Recycling, Vietnam, Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG), Ireland, is now in the final stages of a major investment in lightweight recycled containerboard at its Townsend Hook mill in the U.K. The mill's revamped 5-meter wide machine is now set to be launched in the second half of February. It was originally planned to be launched near the end (Q4) of 2014. 

 

"We announced in 2012 that we will install a modern, 5-meter, lightweight recycled containerboard machine at the Townsend Hook mill in the U.K." The firm said when the project began.

 

The Townsend Hook site has a long industrial history, almost 150 years long and entirely in rooted in paper production. This is one step towards refurbishing the site to both 21st century standards, output, and building aesthetics. As a recent photograph shows below, Townsend is currently a mix between newer warehouses and older buildings from projects long abandoned from those who, through the years, have leased it, owned it, and/or supplied it, but now long gone out of business or taken their investments elsewhere.

 

 

 

Smurfit Kappa is the group taking the steps necessary to make this facility ready to make history in the future, clean it up, maintain it as a primary owner, and not allow it to just be a relic for the U.K.'s manufacturing economy.

 

By investing EUR 115 million in 2013 and 2014, the two existing and operating paper machines are now going to be replaced by one new, state of the art paper machine, increasing the production capacity of the mill by 20,000 metric tpy to 260,000 metric tpy. In addition, it is expected that this new energy efficient paper machine will save 25,000 metric tpy on direct carbon emissions.

 

 

 

Pictured above: new and modern housing facility for the incoming PM being recently completed. Now that the building is structurally complete, the machine can be moved in and put into operation by as early as mid-late February.

 

Production from the new machine is intended to meet the growing demand for sustainable, lower weight, high performance packaging papers where there is stable or growing profitability margins compared with paper produced at Townsend Hook during the years capacity needs and investment originally began to slide and then seriously decline (writing paper, newsprint, all types of paper products replaced by digital media were staples of the mill's paper machines during the past century).

 

These packaging papers are designed to optimize the environmental footprint of the supply chain of Smurfit Kappa’s packaging customers at the redesigned site. And with solid demand in place many believe at least for the next few years if not decades in a developing world with more middle class residents of multiple nations demanding more packaging that needs to be sustainable in order to protect our growing planet, Townsend Hook Paper may likely be able to produce the paperboard necessary to do so on a whole new level while providing a stable labor force for local citizens now and in the future (instead of just the past). 

 

More information about the refurbishing of the mill's housing is available online.