Monadnock Paper Mills Offers the Right Stuff

Developments like these do not happen overnight

 Founded in 1819, Monadnock is the oldest, continuously operating paper-manufacturing site in the United States. The company started generating its own hydropower some 80 years ago and receives 45% of its electricity from this source today. The balance of the energy needed to make the company’s packaging and printing papers is offset by with Green-E certified renewable wind energy certificates.

Even with a 45% increase in production over the course of the last 20 years, Monadnock has reduced water usage by more than 50%. Air particulates have been reduced by 40%. Solid waste, previously sent to a landfill, is now 100% beneficially reused as a topsoil amendment and as animal bedding at local farms.

With the recent shift toward improving the sustainability of packaging, it is easy to forget that concern for the environment and technological advancements have been going on for decades, including: new high performance and bio-based materials, light-weighting, reuse of post-consumer waste, reduced environmental impacts, and greater energy efficiency.

These advancements, as in the case of Monadnock, are the result of long-term commitments to research and development. Monadnock is not alone. Today, thousands of other material and equipment suppliers are making similar investments. Consumer packaged goods companies, big-box retailers, and club store owners must understand that it is in the best interests of everyone to not only rely on these current advancements now, but to also enthusiastically support the supplier community’s future developments. In that way all will benefit.  •