How a Chinese company plans to revitalize 2 struggling Maine mills

[TexasTowelie]

A Chinese company is investing heavily to restore two Maine paper mills it bought last year and turn them into sustainable, long-term businesses.

The head of the company’s U.S. operations said his company, ND Paper, wants to improve efficiency and update operations at the former Catalyst Paper Mill in Rumford and the former Expera Old Town pulp mill, both of which ND bought last year.

To do so, the company is rolling up its sleeves, fixing oil leaks, repairing equipment and adding more efficient machinery.

ND Paper is investing close to $500 million in the four U.S. plants it has purchased in the past year. That amount includes the purchase prices.

Read more: https://bangordailynews.com/2019/05/21/news/lewiston-auburn/how-a-chinese-company-plans-to-revitalize-2-struggling-maine-mills/

[True Blue American]

1. We have a Chinese

Glass company. The complaints about worker safety grow worse each day.

[Tanuki]

2. I'm wondering if China's sudden interest in wood pulp products is related

to their endless consumption of disposable chopsticks? I have read in the past about vast tracts of forest in our Pacific northwest being cut down and exported to China for this purpose, so I wonder if this is going on in Maine as well

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/03/14/chinas-disposable-chopstick-addiction-is-destroying-its-forests/?utm_term=.dd9c7b3603e6

"China uses 20 million trees each year to feed the country's disposable chopstick habit, Bo Guangxin, the head of a major forestry group, told Chinese parliamentarians on Friday according to Chinese state media. At 4,000 chopsticks per tree, that's roughly 80 billion chopsticks per year -- far more than the 57 billion estimated by the country's national forest bureau.

While this is hardly the first time that the chopstick issue has come up in China, the new numbers make the problem look particularly urgent. The country's last forest survey, published in 2009, documented rampant deforestation and forest quality far below the global average. Greenpeace has even dedicated a campaign to the chopstick problem, blaming it for the destruction of 1.18 million square meters of forest every year.".....(more)