"The Problem with Age"




Note: Emails are organized in the order received, with first received at the top.

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Dear Readers:

The weekly survey associated with the above article produced an avalanche of comments. We are devoting this week's letters column to the comments from that survey.

Jim

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The question was: "Are you optimistic about the future of the pulp and paper industry?
Here are the uncut responses:

It will evolve in some form to make more demanding products

I am optimistic that the pulp and paper industry can be transformed into an industry that helps to define and satisfy emerging needs. Pulp and paper companies that remain oriented to the past are likely doomed. We need to think like Wayne Gretzky, who became great not by skating to the puck but to where the puck was going to be.

I am pessimistic for current mills and rank/file employees. The good corporations will survive by making new products, but mostly in different towns with different (new) equipment. The unsuccessful companies will be replaced by emerging companies in these new locations.

The paper industry has potential, I have doubts about the flexibility of management's thinking.

From a N American perspective. If talking globally, then my answer would be more to a "yes".

FBB, KLB, and newsprint are strong in NZ. Wood grows like nowhere else, energy and labour are cheap. Markets can be a bit too far away though. The increase in world population, and increase in standard of living will increase paper consumption even when other technologies are developed. Even for newspapers, which will probably never be totally phased out.

Of course, this really depends on the grade of paper one is involved in and whether or not the Chinese are growing that same grade

Not US production of pulp and paper. It is going off shore.

Not by making things that were important 40 yrs ago. By making things that reduce waste, improve handling & improve hygiene

I see paperboard for packaging and tissue being used in the next 30 years!

At least not in the Western world China and India on the other hand are on the early part of the curve

It is metamorphizing into supporting to packaging industry. It must learn how to displace entrenched plastic products. There will be more specialty high grade (Coated) publications and we will still have the lower grades used in fewer direct mail pieces. Unforunately newsprint will be reduced to a much lower level and its remaining producion subverted to specialty uses and packaging. Egg cartons will endure!

Medium yes. There will be many declines as we print less in the home, the office, magazines etc. But paper is low cost, renewable and recyclable so it should continue finding new uses.

Packaging will be with us for a long, long time

New type of paper and its new functionality or applications will take place.

I'm an academic and am enthused by the youth and enlightened by the aged. Your article this week is on the mark.

Strong and fundamental, pulp and paper (or some type of product made of pulp) are here to stay. The players will change, as will the mill activities and products. The education / skills required to work in the industry will change, too. Get on board, or get out of the way!

But not in the USA. The world demand of paper products has increased, but we as Americans can not compete due to the cost of making the product and transporting it. As the paper industry has increased capacity in other parts of the world, we in America have been forced to decrease capacity due to supply and demand.

If they don't find other applications outside of printing&writing both for cellulose and papers

Parts of it - tissue(hygiene), packaging, speciality papers. Communication papers (news, magazine, office) will slowly decline (over decades). Asia may take up the slack though.

Pulp is in the bottomline, CO2 captured from the atmosphere. Wood industry, using fast growing planted trees is going to be more and more important to reducing atmospheric CO2 level, I supose. I think packaging and tissue market have definitly a growing trend. I don't think the future is as bright for writing and printing paper. The consumption of higher quality increasing and lower quality decreasing: Quality of home printing = professional high quality publishing materials, e.g. digital pictures. I supose unbleached delignifiede or peroxide semibleached pulp is more promissing than fully bleached pulp. Why do we bleach pulp for diapers, toillet paper, kitching towels etc.?

The forest is a massive warehouse of renewable chemicals and "green" materials

In Baltimore, just down the block from one of my early assignments, was an impressive facade with the title "U.S. Steel Research Center" carved in the archway above a barred entry chocked with weeds and trash. We all know the story of the demise of big steel in the U.S. but steel remains with us and today's "tin cans" are not what they were. The shuttering of R&D in the domestic pulp and paper industry may portend a fate similar to the steel industry and just as in the steel industry, others know and will search and find the means to exploit the value of cellulose produced by the plant kingdom.

Cellulose is an incredible polymer.

There are many opportunities that are yet untapped. It is also very easy to compete with the slow and lumbering BIG companies!

Oil prices are going up, this makes wood based sollutions ever more competitive

"Pulp and Paper Industry - no....BUT the conversion of trees to value added products (fuels and chemicals) a Definite YES!

Apparently, the industry companies' leadership lacks the vision to transform the industry. Initially a change from title of "pulp and paper industry" to something more relevant like 'renewable resource utilization industry' might be a good idea. Questions like, "How can we transform trees into products that contribute to the betterment of mankind?" might result in salvation of the intellectual capital the industry currently has.

The biggest issue is we are being regulated to death. It gets harder and harder to conduct "normal" business. Also, I am doing the work of at least three people. Remember when it was said we would be working 4 day weeks because technology was going to speed up our jobs? Little did they imagine what would happen! Who has a secretary any more? We all had to learn to type!

should have a no button as well!!

I work in the dissolving side of the industry and so see cellulose as a chemical not just a fiber. It is in everything from food to clothes to tires and we are really just starting to focus on its uses again.

This is for the Paper industry in generel, but not for all paper grades. Many of them will disappear and new ones for new applications have to be invented. Cost for Fibre will increas, because some industries i.e. Energy will compete with pulp&Paper industry for the resources. This will lead to higher Paper prices and enforce the trend to fully electronic systems in information chains

All the mills that have closed represented the little rake in your story. Outdated. Business will return and the more efficient machines will survive.

Yes I am optimistic. But it´s depend on what category we look at. News less optimistic because of internet and reading plates. Packaging paper still needed and probably tend to increas.

we need to point out the potential of using a renewable resource, Trees and advance research, listen to new ideas of young and old and promte same.

Retired pulp and paper company CFO stopped by the other evening for a Rotary meeting at our foundation building. Owns a Kindle. No more newsprint.

But only for rigid packaging materials like corrugated and other boards and some specialities. Publication grades are out in 20 years.

Most forms of paper will disappear, I fear - leaving just corrugated, tissue papers, and hygienic products. Guess I'm speaking of the demise of communication papers including copy paper, coated paper for magazines, and greeting card, etc.

ONLY IF THEY REINVENT THEMSELVES AS ENERGY PRODUCERS

But not so much in the US. Too much government involvement and too high cost in business and industry.

I could go either way on this question. A lot hinges upon external circumstances and how they affect this industry. If the govts both State and Federal would get out of the way and allow for large industries such as the pulp and paper industry to expand and invest - I believe the future of the industry, particularly in the US has the potential to be bright. If we continue our descent into the dark pit of Socialism the future is pretty bleak.

It has become clear that, although going through some significant adjustments, there will ALWAYS be a place for pulp & paper. An example of "optimism" that was received well by a group of mixed ages was that Southern Pine has unique fiber properties that have maintained & increased demand in the fluff pulp & other specialty fiber markets. It is interesting to hear that cellulose fibers are used in such diverse applications as fabric & TV screens - there is hope, but change & adapt we must!

most mature manufacturing buisiness segments are suffering - China!

Less innovation and creativity being done.

Firstly, the paper industry thinks, like most industries today, that if you have age in your favor you have nothing to contribute. Secondly, To make paper there are fundamental truths you need to understand about fiber preparation, forming pressing, drying, calendering, and web conveyance and how these operations affect paper properties. The paper industry is focused on simplified, increased production techniques. This focuses the industry towards DCS experts and less towards papermakers. DCS systems while revolutionary for process control do little to teach the fundamental understanding that allows innovation. Lack of fundamental paper making understanding at the will limit the success of innovation and invention needed to create the new products for the future.

packaging grades and tissue are the immediate future. Eventually, the industry can be expected to migrate into the production of new products from cellulose and lignin. Trees are too valuable to burn.

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