FOR more than 30 years, Norske Skog’s Ettamogah mill has produced an impressive paper trail.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Enough paper, in fact, to go to the moon and back a staggering 136 times.
Last Friday the company rolled out its seven-millionth tonne of paper, upon which today’s edition of The Border Mail is printed.
A jumbo roll, measuring 8.5 metres wide and weighing about 27 tonnes, was completed at 9.13pm, almost four years since the six-millionth tonne was produced on July 20, 2011.
The roll used on The Border Mail press at Wodonga had been cut down to about 1.6 metres wide with a diameter of more than 1.2 metres.
The seven-million tonnes of paper is enough to produce 88,846,150,100 copies of The Border Mail, based on a 64-page publication.
Norske Skog general manager Milo Foster said it was a milestone the company had reached despite the downturn of domestic demand since the company was established in 1981.
The business supplies paper product to major print centres in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane but Mr Foster said they began exporting in 2013 due to the declining demand in Australia.
“In 2012 we didn’t export at all but this year about 25 per cent of volume is going overseas and that’s about how much domestic business has shrunk in terms of demand,” Mr Foster said.
“But we are providing good jobs, we still have 180 people working here and despite the decline in the market we are still able to keep running every day thanks to some exports and the good quality products we produce.”
It took the company six years to get from five million to six million tonnes, then machines were rebuilt so production was sped up.
The company expected to reach eight-million tonnes by 2019.