Mondi plc has agreed to acquire the Duino mill near Trieste (Italy) from the Burgo Group for a total consideration of €40 million. The mill currently operates one paper machine producing lightweight coated mechanical paper. Mondi plans to convert this paper machine to produce around 420,000 tonnes per annum of high-quality recycled containerboard for an estimated investment of around €200 million. Close to two important export harbours, Duino is ideally located to supply the Group’s Corrugated Solutions plants in Central Europe and Turkey as well as to serve the growing local Italian market. The containerboard machine will strengthen backward integration in Corrugated Packaging and provide us with security of supply to better serve our customers.

China’s General Administration of Customs (GACC) announced important new regulations tightening the importation of recycled paper pulp, an action reverberating through the Asian pulp and paper industry and the global recovered fibre trade. Under the directive, all importers must now officially declare whether imported recycled pulp has been produced using a dry or wet process. This targeted policy shift is China’s response to ongoing concerns over improper importation channels and attempts to disguise unprocessed waste paper as legally compliant pulp. For context, recycled wet pulp is manufactured via the disintegration, cleaning, and beating of waste paper, then formed into compressed, dewatered blocks. Dry-milled pulp, however, is processed by crushing waste paper into small fragments and compressing them into dense bales, a method that generally lacks rigorous purification, disinfection, and sterilization steps.

Wisconsin Rapids fire officials say there’s an ongoing investigation into cause of a fire at the Verso Paper Mill on West Riverview Expressway. Multiple fire departments were called to help fight the fire Tuesday evening. It was mostly contained by 10:15pm. Witnesses say black smoke was seen rising from the part of the complex. A former employee of the mill says the fire was in the Kraft Mill where wood chips were cooked into pulp. The paper mill was opened in 1904. It was Rapids’ largest employer until it was shut down in the summer of 2020.