Pizza boxes wanted: Old Town paper mill asks local residents for cardboard
Courtesy / ND Paper
ND Paper in Old Town, shown here, is asking local residents for cardboard to turn into pulp as costs surge.
The ND Paper mill in Old Town is now sourcing some of its raw materials from the households of four Maine communities.
In an effort to keep waste out of landfills and to control costs, the mill is asking residents of Old Town, Bradley, Orono and Milford to provide cardboard, food packaging boxes and pizza boxes, which ND Paper turns into pulp. It's sold on the global market and then turned back into packaging materials.
The mill began the program in November. “People responded in droves,” ND Paper spokesman Brennan Burks said Friday. “This is an indefinite program. We’re exploring options to expand it across all our facilities.”
The price of raw materials reached a four-year high last spring, Burks said, putting pressure on pulp makers to get creative in sourcing products.
Burks said the high cost of materials and the shortage of supply was only part of the reason the mill reached out to residents. It also aims to keep cardboard out of landfills and reduce the environmental impact of these materials.
In April, ND Paper said it would expand pulp manufacturing in Old Town with the addition of a production line that recycles paper.
ND Paper is the U.S. subsidiary of giant Chinese manufacturer Nine Dragons Paper (Holdings) Ltd.
ND Paper purchased the mill and 100 acres in Old Town for an undisclosed price in the fall of 2018. The plant, which had been shuttered since 2015, reopened in August 2019.
The site began as a sawmill in 1860 and moved into pulp production in 1882 as Penobscot Chemical Fiber Co.
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