Genera starts up ANDRITZ pulping and stock preparation systems for sustainable packaging production

Governor Laura Kelly joined officials from Pratt Industries as they opened their new state-of-the-art advanced manufacturing corrugated box plant in Park City. The plant represents a $200 million investment that will create 58 new high-paying, quality jobs in Sedgwick County over the next five years. The almost 1 million-square-foot Park City facility will accommodate increased production capacity, employ 300 full-time “green collar” manufacturing jobs, and increase its presence in the greater Wichita area. The company will continue its recycling operations at the existing Wichita facility and use the new plant for manufacturing operations.

“Koehler NexPlus® Seal Pure” flexible packaging paper from Koehler Paper was awarded a 2025 PAP’AWARD in the Circular Economy category at the “La Nuit du Papier” event in Paris in April. This was the third time that the event has taken place, and the use case that led to the award for the heat-sealable packaging paper consisted of French cooperative “Coopenoix” packing organic walnuts in a 500 g paper bag for the first time ever. The unique bit about the packaging? A sheer linen mesh window that replaces plastic windows and meshes. The bag, which combines outstanding strength with the aforementioned see-through feature, was processed by French converter Multisac. “Like all other Koehler NexPlus® paper offerings, ‘Koehler NexPlus® Seal Pure’ is also heat-sealable, and its strength properties make it ideally suited for further processing on all standard packaging machines. To put it another way, the material’s micro and macroperforation, as well as the window’s processing, were a piece of cake,” explains Bettina Bastien, Business Development / Brand Owner manager for flexible packaging paper at Koehler Paper. “This award honors the commitment to innovation and the development of efficient and sustainable paper solutions for which Koehler Paper is known.”

The two companies will partner to provide circular solutions to the market. The investment in a complete recycling solution is set to significantly improve recycling throughout Central and Eastern Europe. The partnership, that follows a comprehensive feasibility study, sees the introduction of a large-scale carton repulping line at Stora Enso’s Ostrołęka production unit in Poland. The line will triple the annual recycling capacity of used beverage cartons in Poland from 25 000 to 75 000 tonnes. This will allow recycling of the entire volume of beverage cartons sold in the country and the ones coming from neighbouring countries, including Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The total investment is EUR 29.1 million. Stora Enso will invest EUR 17 million into a new repulping line that will recover the carton fibers. Tetra Pak along with Plastigram will invest a total of EUR 12.1 million to build an additional line. It will recover and separately recycle the polymers and the aluminium, using a patented separation technology. Both lines will be operational in the beginning of 2023.