South Carolina paper industry writes some pulp friction

South Carolina’s paper industry has had just about enough of environmentally conscious email senders asking their recipients to resist the urge to hit the print button.

So it’s fighting fire with fire, in a manner of speaking.

Take ArborGen, the Ridgeville-based company that breeds new varieties of trees. It was originally founded by a group of paper manufacturers, including the former MeadWestvaco Corp. It hasn’t forgotten its roots since being sold last year.

“Notice: It’s OK to print this email. Paper is a biodegradable, renewable, sustainable product made from trees,” reads the signature on its spokeswoman’s email. “Thanks to improved forest management, we have more trees in America today than nearly 100 years ago.”

Arborgen, it turns out, isn’t alone. Fort Mill-based Domtar — one of the state’s largest corporations — is pushing a similar message companywide.

Its pitch: “Paper informs us, persuades us, educates us and organizes us. It’s OK to use paper.”

Domtar spokesman Stefan Nowicki said the company rolled that message out to make the point that printing email isn’t bad for the environment. It’s no worse, he suggested, than displaying it on a computer or smartphone screen.

“Paper is also the most recycled product on the planet, something you can’t say about the many heavy metals in your smartphone that will just end up in a landfill once it is time to upgrade to the next generation of device,” Nowicki says. “Not to mention the costly and polluting extraction of those materials.”

Call it the case of the purloined port payment. Or the Savannah River skirmish.

In either case, just don’t get between state Sen. Tom Davis and a podium microphone when the legislator is fired up about something.

A couple of weeks ago, Davis accused the State Ports Authority of diverting $5 million that was supposed to go toward the permitting costs for a new maritime terminal in Jasper County and using it instead for the Charleston Harbor deepening project.

Davis, a Beaufort Republican and longtime supporter of the proposed Jasper port to be jointly operated by South Carolina and Georgia, was infuriated when he learned the money had been stripped from the House version of next year’s budget.

In response to Davis’ questioning, a staff member from the House Ways and Means committee told him the SPA needed the funds for harbor deepening because matching dollars from the federal government were slow in coming.
more at:  https://www.postandcourier.com/business/grapevine-south-carolina-paper-industry-writes-some-pulp-friction/article_16fb878a-1b1d-11e8-a52a-f3feb8502991.html