GP to shutter containerboard mill in Georgia

Georgia-Pacific has reportedly informed employees at its Cedar Springs containerboard mill in southwest Georgia that it plans to permanently close the mill later this year.

A report on Investing.com indicates the mill has the capacity to produce approximately 800,000 tons per year of linerboard and 200,000 tons per year of corrugating medium.

A Georgia environmental permit from 2019 says the mill is being equipped to prepare and use wood chips as raw material as well as (at that time) operating what the state’s Environmental Protection Division (EDP) calls “a recycled fiber plant where bales of old corrugated containers (OCC) and double-lined Kraft (DLK) clippings are received, mixed with paper machine white water, and pulped by mechanical agitation.”

Atlanta-based GP says most work positions at the mill will be eliminated by Aug.1, and the company will work with affected employees, including by identifying available job opportunities with Georgia-Pacific or other companies in the portfolio of GP’s parent firm Koch Industries.

“Various factors influenced this difficult decision,” GP says. “Ultimately, we do not believe that the mill can competitively serve our customers in the long term.” 

The forest products company says production in Cedar Springs will continue “for a limited time as the site works to fulfill customer commitments.”

The announced closure joins several others made in the American paperboard sector in the past several weeks, including a decision by Delaware, Ohio-based Grief to permanently close a mill in Los Angeles and another by Irish packaging company Smurfit Westrock to idle production at recycled-content mills in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Forney, Texas.