Displaying items by tag: recycling

Work is underway to transition Sonoco Recycling, Inc.'s Charlotte Recycling Center into a full-scale material recovery facility (MRF) by early summer 2010. The $2.6 million project will result in the Charlotte center, located at 3901 Barringer Drive, becoming the third MRF owned and operated by the Company in the Southeast. The others are located in Raleigh, N.C., and Columbia, S.C.

"We're adding high-tech equipment that will allow us to further grow our capacity and more effectively sort residential single-stream waste. Additions will include new sorting screens, separators, high-speed conveyors, steel disks and other state-of-the-art equipment," said Marcy Thompson, vice president and general manager, Sonoco Recycling, Inc. "While Mecklenburg County is already served by a materials recovery facility, the area needs a second MRF because of the tremendous growth throughout the region. These upgrades, along with the upgrades we completed last fall, better position us to meet the recycling needs of this growing market."

In November 2009, Sonoco Recycling completed a $2 million expansion project at the Charlotte center. The project expanded the facility's footprint by 23,500 square feet and included the installation of new commercial sorting and baling equipment. In addition, the facility's outside space was redesigned to improve traffic flow.

Sonoco Recycling's Charlotte center accepts and processes corrugated boxes and other grades of paper as well as plastic and other materials.The facility accepts curbside material delivered by the public and offers flatbed pick up of baled material, and van pick up for loose, palletized or baled material. Sonoco, which processes and uses many of these recycled materials to produce recycled paperboard at its paper mills in the Southeast, then uses that paperboard to produce new consumer and industrial packaging, making Sonoco one of the few closed loop suppliers of packaging in the industry.

Sonoco Recycling is a leading recycler in North Carolina with nine locations. Annually, Sonoco collects and processes about 3 million tons of recyclable materials globally through 41 locations, and has a team of recycling professionals, many of whom are experts in waste management and manufacturing process improvement.

Stora Enso to centralise the use of recovered fibre-based packaging in Finland at Pori

Closure of recycling plant at Varkaus and core plant at Pori planned - temporary newsprint layoff plan at Varkaus

Stora Enso is planning to centralise the use of recovered fibre-based packaging in Finland at the Corenso Pori coreboard mill. A recycling plant investment at the Pori coreboard mill will enable all the used packaging collected from households in Finland to be utilised at Pori. This includes used beverage cartons collected in Finland. Permanent closure of the recycling plant at Varkaus at the end of the third quarter of 2010 is planned. The Ecogas gasification plant associated with the Varkaus recycling plant will continue to operate. The Varkaus recycling plant employs 15 people.

As a part of the restructuring, Stora Enso's wholly-owned subsidiary Corenso also plans to centralise core production in Finland at Loviisa and Imatra, and permanently close down the core plant at Pori in the third quarter of 2010. Demand for cores has drastically decreased in Finland in recent years due to paper machine shutdowns and production curtailments. The Pori core plant employs 15 people.

"Recycling recovered fibre-based packaging at the same site as a board machine using the material is logistically efficient and reduces costs significantly. The plan to centralise core production at Loviisa and Imatra would also yield significant cost savings and improve Corenso's operating conditions in difficult and uncertain markets," says Sampo Antti, head of the Corenso business unit, explaining the plans.
There are no major financial provisions related to these measures.

Varkaus newsprint production curtailed until further notice Stora Enso plans to curtail newsprint production on Varkaus paper machine 2 (PM2) with temporary lay-offs until further notice due to weak market conditions. As a part of the plan, newsprint production at Varkaus would be concentrated on PM 4, improving its operating rates. The total number of employees affected by the co-determination negotiations concerning temporary lay-offs is around 90.

The plans are subject to co-determination negotiations with the employee representatives. Any decision on closures and other measures will be taken later when the co-determination negotiations concerning the units have been undertaken and concluded as required.

For further information, please contact:
Concerning Varkaus newsprint production curtailment: Reino Panula, Varkaus Mill
Manager, tel. +358 2046 32740
Concerning Corenso: Sampo Antti, Senior Vice President, Corenso Business Unit,
tel. +358 40 589 2409
Päivi Kauhanen, Director, Communications in Finland, tel. +358 2046 21292