Domtar completes Kingsport conversion, resumes operations

Domtar has resumed operations at its mill in Kingsport, Tennessee, after completing the two-year conversion of the facility from an uncoated freesheet paper mill into the company’s first 100-percent-recycled packaging plant.

The project totaled $350 million and, upon its completion, makes the site home to the second-largest recycled containerboard machine in North America, according to Fort Mill, South Carolina-based Domtar.

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“This is a monumental day for Domtar that marks our official entry into the containerboard market,” Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Steve Henry says. “I am proud of the packaging, mill and extended Domtar team for their hard work and commitment. We also are grateful to our community for their support throughout the project.”

The mill recently produced its first roll of recycled containerboard, and the facility is expected to produce 600,000 tons of recycled linerboard and corrugated medium annually, consuming 660,000 tons per year of old corrugated containers [OCC] and mixed paper.

“We aren’t just interested in being another containerboard supplier,” Domtar Senior Sales Director Mike Butler says. “We want to become North America’s premium producer with deep and lasting partnerships with independent corrugators. We are leveraging our experience and global leaders in pulp and paper to serve the packaging industry by focusing on customers’ success and consistently delivering the highest quality products.”

The Kingsport mill was idled in March 2020 in what Butler said at the time was “an effort to balance our paper production with our customers’ demand,” and as the coronavirus pandemic progressed and the supply of printing and writing paper tightened, the decision was made in August 2020 to enter the containerboard market.

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“Kingsport is strategically and geographically centered amid a number of independent corrugated converters, and that’s who our market is—that’s who we’ll be selling to,” Butler told Recycling Today in March of last year.