North Davidson Garbage Service and Recycling Center based in Lexington, North Carolina, experienced a fire Friday, Aug. 30, according to a report by the Winston-Salem Journal newspaper. The report says the fire caused more than $6 million in damage.

According to the report, 17 area fire departments responded to the fire, which started at about 6:45 p.m. after employees left the 54,000-square-foot facility for the day. The report says a passerby noticed the fire at 7 p.m. and alerted the authorities. Firefighters worked to put out hot spots and smaller fires on more than 80 tons of recyclable materials until Saturday, Sept. 1. 

Brad Everhart, co-owner of North Davidson Garbage Service and Recycling Center, told the Winston-Salem Journal he left the facility at 6:15 p.m. Aug. 30, about half an hour before the fire started. 

“We’ve had an unfortunate incident at our processing facility that we operate all of our operations out of except for our office,” Everhart says in a video release he posted to the company’s Facebook page on Sept. 1. “All of our trucks except for a few are in tact, so business as usual on Monday. We will be at your curbside the way we always have since 1972. We just had an incredible overwhelming tragedy of events here, but no one was hurt. We’re going to be fine. A lot of people won’t have jobs for a bit, but we’re going to find something for them to get through the best we can. We’re going to get through it, keep people working and do our best.”

North Davidson Garbage Service and Recycling Center is a family-run business that started in 1972. The Winston-Salem Journal report says Brad Everhart and Brooke Everhart took over the business in 2015.

Miamisburg, Ohio-based Verso Corp. has restarted the No. 3 paper machine at its mill in Jay, Maine, after converting it from coated printing and writing paper output to kraft linerboard.

In comments accompanying its second quarter of 2018 financial results, Verso CEO Chris DiSantis refers to “low-cost conversion strategies, including the on-schedule restart of the No. 3 paper machine at the Androscoggin Mill [in Jay, Maine].”

An analysis by Boston-based forest products information company RISI pegs the Verso conversion as costing just $19 million, a fraction of the cost of some other North American mill conversion projects, which have ranged from $30 million to more than $300 million to undertake.

The No. 3 paper machine is expected to produce about 200,000 tons per year of linerboard, according to DiSantis.

In Verso’s second quarter conference call, as reported by RISI, DiSantis said the lower cost was attributable to “an excellent machine that had a very good backend [system].” He added, “From a technical standpoint, making graphic paper products is technically more difficult than making linerboard.”

When in February 2018 the company announced its plans to convert the No. 3 machine, DiSantis commented, “Verso identified this upgrade and restart of the No. 3 paper machine and associated equipment at the Androscoggin Mill as part of our continuing development of a holistic strategy that includes repositioning of certain assets.”

Verso has largely relied on wood and wood pulp in heavily forested Maine in terms of its fiber supply. On its website, the company states, “Verso’s own carbon life cycle assessments found that using post-consumer recovered fiber in our products could actually result in a larger carbon footprint, leading us to the conclusion that recycled content use is not always a valuable sustainability performance metric for the paper grades we manufacture. We continue to offer recycled content upon request in most of the grades we manufacture.”

The shifting landscape of the freight sector in Europe and beyond will be among the discussion topics at the 2018 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference Europe, which is Nov. 6-7 in Prague.

A session at the event titled Inland Journeys and Export Options has been designed to include panelists who will provide updates on the existing challenges and potential solutions available in Europe’s freight sector.” The session takes place the afternoon of Tuesday, November 6, the conference’s opening day.

Among the presenters and panelists at the freight-focused session is Sebastien Reiner, a supply chain manager with Germany-based Rhenus Port Logistics. Also on the panel are two presenters from large recycling firms based in Europe: Ved Prakash, a director with Antwerp, Belgium-based Gemini Corp.; and Dennis Korn, a logistics officer with Peute Recycling, which is based near Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

The session following Inland Journeys and Export Options is titled Special Delivery: The Amazon Effect. Moderated by United States-based recycling industry consultant Bill Moore, this part of the program will explore how online shopping and work-from-home arrangements have contributed to an influx of old corrugated containers (OCC) in the residential recycling stream.

The complete schedule for the 2018 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference Europe, which is organized by the Recycling Today Media Group, can be found here and details on how to register online are available on this web page.

A United States-based subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Nine Dragons Paper (Holdings) Ltd. has entered into an agreement with Montreal-based Resolute Forest Products Inc. to purchase Resolute’s recycled-content bleached kraft pulp mill in Fairmont, West Virginia.

According to a press release issued by Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois-based ND Paper LLC, Resolute will receive $55 million “plus certain elements of working capital, payable in cash” for the mill. Nine Dragons says it plans to use “existing cash on its balance sheet” to fund the transaction.

“We are thrilled to add the Fairmont mill to Nine Dragons’ global portfolio,” says Ken Liu, CEO of ND Paper. “Our acquisition of the Fairmont mill enables us to further our U.S. and global growth, and sustains the momentum commenced by our recent acquisitions of the Biron, Wisconsin and Rumford, Maine, pulp and paper mills acquired from Catalyst Paper in [May] 2018. Not only is this transaction consistent with our long-term strategy of environmentally-sustainable papermaking, but also it further supports Nine Dragons’ company-wide fiber sourcing requirements and global growth initiatives.”

The Fairmont mill produces recycled-content pulp used in packaging and tissue products. Located in the northern part of West Virginia, the mill has an annual production capacity of nearly 220,000 metric tons and is one of three pulp mills in the world that produces air-dried recycled pulp, according to ND Paper.

Through the acquisition, ND Paper says it will gain access to high-quality recycled pulp and will diversify its manufacturing base. The company also says it intends to make capital investments in the mill that will “expand its current capabilities and inject growth into the West Virginia economy, particularly in the surrounding community.”

Nine Dragons operates nine mills and 39 paper machines with total annual production capacity of more than 14 million metric tons. The company was established in 1995.

ND Paper says it expects to close on the acquisition by the end of October, “subject to customary closing conditions and approvals,” and that it has agreed to offer employment to the Resolute mill’s workers, “effective upon closing of the acquisition.”

ND Paper worked in cooperation with New York-based Sonenshine Partners LLC as its financial advisor and Cleveland-based Jones Day as its legal counsel to structure the acquisition. Toronto-based BMO Capital Markets acted as the financial advisor on behalf of Resolute.

The acquisition occurred within days of another U.S. paper or pulp mill being purchased by an Asian company. In late August, China-based investment group Global Win Wickliffe LLC acquired an idled Verso Paper mill in Ballard County, Kentucky, with plans to reopen the facility by the end of 2018 after investing in equipment and technology at the facility. The mill has been idle since mid-2016.

Boston-based forest products information services provider RISI says sources have indicated to it that Global Win Wickliffe is investing on behalf of Shanying International, one of China’s five largest containerboard producers. If so, the mill in Kentucky would be Shanying’s first pulp and paper production facility in the United States, according to RISI.

According to a news release issued by the office of Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, Global Win Wickliffe plans to invest about $150 million to upgrade the mill, following up on its $16 million acquisition of the facility from Verso.