Visy Agrees to Build Staten Island Box Plant

Visy Paper officially announced that they will build a 100,000 square foot box plant adjacent to their Staten Island, N.Y., paper mill. (See Earlier Story)

Visy will invest $30 million in the project, employ an additional 125 people when it is completed and recycle more of the city's waste paper. The plant now receives about 150,000 tons a year.

In return, the city will provide some tax-exempt financing, allow Visy to continue to buy electricity through the New York City Public Utility Service, help construct a Staten Island Railroad spur from the Travis branch to the plant and possibly provide some tax incentives.

Construction is scheduled to begin next year and be completed within 18 months.

"When we built this mill in 1997, it was and remains the single largest manufacturing investment in New York in more than half a century," said Anthony Pratt of Pratt Industries, the Australian-based company that owns Visy Paper. "The new plant will allow us to recycle up to 100,000 additional tons of waste paper, which is the equivalent of [saving] about 4,000 trees per day."