The smoke stopped rising in Canton, North Carolina, and honestly, the town hasn't felt the same since. When Pactiv Evergreen shuttered that mill in 2023, it wasn't just about losing 1,100 jobs. It was the smell. For a century, that "smell of money" defined the valley, and then, suddenly, the air was clean and the wallets were empty. You've probably seen the headlines about international paper mill closures popping up from the Pacific Northwest to the forests of Finland. It feels like a funeral procession for an industry we all thought was immortal because, well, everyone still uses toilet paper, right?
But here’s the thing.
The narrative that the paper industry is simply "dying" is a bit of a lazy take. It's moving. It's morphing. It's getting leaner and, in many cases, meaner. While we watch massive machines in the United States and Europe get sold for scrap, new giants are rising in South America and Southeast Asia.
Why the Machines are Going Silent
If you want to understand why these mills are dropping like flies, you have to look at the machines themselves. Many of the mills closing today were built forty, fifty, or even eighty years ago. They were designed for newsprint. Remember newspapers? Those thin, gray sheets that used to arrive on your driveway every morning? In 1990, newsprint was the king of the mountain. Today, it’s a niche product.
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When demand for newsprint and graphic paper (the stuff in magazines) plummeted, these old mills faced a brutal choice. They could either spend $500 million to $1 billion to "re-reel" and convert the mill to produce containerboard—the brown cardboard used for Amazon boxes—or they could turn off the lights. Many chose the lights.
Stora Enso, a massive name in the sector, has been aggressive about this. They’ve shut down sites like the Anjala paper mill in Finland because the cost of energy in Europe became a nightmare. You can't run a power-hungry mill when electricity prices are spiking due to geopolitical instability. It’s basic math. If it costs more to power the plant than the paper is worth on the global market, you're done.
Then there’s the "fiber" problem. In the industry, we call wood "fiber." In places like British Columbia, mill closures have become an epidemic. Why? Because the wood is getting harder to get. Decades of beetle infestations and devastating wildfires have decimated the available timber. Canfor Corporation had to shut down the pulp line at its Prince George Pulp and Paper Mill because they simply didn't have enough economically viable wood to keep the machines hungry.
The Shift to the Global South
While North America loses capacity, South America is booming. Why would you run a mill in a cold climate where trees take 50 years to grow when you can go to Brazil? In Brazil, eucalyptus trees reach harvestable size in about seven years. It’s essentially "farming" wood on a scale that makes northern forests look like slow-motion movies.
Suzano, the Brazilian giant, is a name you should know. They are currently operating some of the lowest-cost pulp mills in the world. When a company like Suzano can produce a ton of pulp for a fraction of what it costs a mill in Wisconsin or Maine, the outcome is inevitable. Capital flows to efficiency.
The Digital Substitution Myth
People love to say that the "paperless office" finally arrived and killed the industry. That's only half true.
Sure, we don't print memos anymore. But have you looked at your recycling bin lately? It is overflowing with corrugated cardboard. The "Amazon Effect" created a massive surge in demand for packaging. This is the great irony of international paper mill closures: we are actually using more fiber than ever in some sectors, just not the kind of fiber that old mills were built to make.
The closures we see are often a "rebalancing." Companies like International Paper and WestRock (now merged with Smurfit Kappa) are constantly evaluating their "portfolio." If a mill is too far from a shipping port, or if the local labor market is too tight, or if the machinery is too narrow to be efficient, it gets the axe. They aren't exiting the business; they are consolidating their power into "mega-mills" that can produce 3,000 tons a day with a skeleton crew.
Regulation and the "Green" Squeeze
We also need to talk about the EPA and EU environmental standards. It’s not a popular conversation in boardrooms, but it’s a real factor. Upgrading an old mill to meet modern emissions standards for air and water quality is insanely expensive.
Take the closure of the WestRock mill in Tacoma, Washington. They cited high operating costs and the investment needed to keep the facility viable. Part of that "investment" is often the looming shadow of environmental compliance. For many aging facilities, the cost of "going green" is the final nail in the coffin.
What This Means for the Global Supply Chain
When a mill closes in a remote town, the ripple effect is devastating. It starts with the loggers who have nowhere to take their trucks. Then it hits the chemical suppliers. Then the local greasy spoon where the shift workers ate breakfast.
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But on a global scale, it means something else: Volatiltiy.
As production becomes concentrated in fewer, larger mills, the supply chain becomes more brittle. If one of these "mega-mills" in South America has a fire or a strike, the price of pulp swings wildly across the globe. We saw this during the post-COVID recovery. Prices for paperboard and tissue went through the roof because the "buffer" of smaller, local mills was gone.
Real Examples of the Fallout
- UPM-Kymmene (Finland/Germany): They’ve been shutting down graphic paper machines for years, most recently impacting sites like Plattling in Germany. They are pivoting hard toward biofuels and biochemicals.
- WestRock (North America): Their closure of the North Charleston, South Carolina mill was a shocker. It wiped out production of containerboard and uncoated kraft paper in one fell swoop.
- Pixelle Specialty Solutions: They closed their Jay, Maine mill (Androscoggin) after a digester explosion a few years prior made the facility's long-term future shaky.
These aren't just names on a spreadsheet. These are legacy institutions. When they go, the knowledge base of the industry—the guys who can tell a machine is vibrating wrong just by the sound—disappears with them.
The Future: It's Not All Brown Cardboard
Is everything going to be a closure? No.
There is a weird, burgeoning market for plastic replacement. You've seen the paper straws (everyone hates them, but they use fiber). Now we're seeing molded fiber packaging for electronics and even paper bottles for spirits and detergents.
Companies like Billerud are investing in converting North American mills to produce "primary fiber" packaging—high-end stuff that can replace plastic. This is the "pivot" that might save some sites. But it requires massive capital. If you don't have a parent company with deep pockets, your mill is basically a museum waiting for a wrecking ball.
The Survival of the Fittest (and Largest)
If you're looking at the industry today, the winners are the ones who integrated vertically. They own the land, they own the trees, they own the mill, and they own the converting plant that makes the boxes. Everyone else is just a middleman getting squeezed by rising energy costs and fluctuating pulp prices.
The trend of international paper mill closures will likely continue through 2026 and 2027 as the industry finishes its "great consolidation." We are moving toward a world where a dozen massive companies control 80% of the world's paper supply.
Actionable Insights for Navigating the Shift
If you are a business owner, a local leader in a mill town, or an investor, you can't just wait for the steam to stop. You have to be proactive.
1. Diversify your packaging sources. If your business relies on specific paper grades, don't put all your eggs in one mill's basket. Closures often happen with only 60 to 90 days of notice. If your supplier shuts down, you need a backup in a different geographic region.
2. Watch the "Machine Age." If you're an investor or a local government official, look at the age of the machines in your local mill. If they haven't had a major "rebuild" in 20 years, that mill is at high risk. Modernization is the only insurance policy against closure.
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3. Focus on Specialty Grades. The mills that are surviving are often the ones that do something nobody else can. Medical-grade paper, high-end food packaging, and specialized filter papers are much harder to "offshore" to Brazil than standard copy paper.
4. Plan for "Post-Mill" Economies. For towns facing a closure, the transition is brutal. The most successful examples of recovery involve aggressive "brownfield" redevelopment—turning old mill sites into data centers or multi-modal shipping hubs. These sites have something rare: massive power and water infrastructure. That’s a goldmine for the tech industry if marketed correctly.
The paper industry isn't disappearing; it's just becoming an elite club. The days of a small, independent mill humming along in the woods of Ontario or Maine are mostly over. It’s a game of scale now. If you can’t produce a million tons a year, you’re basically just keeping the seat warm for the guy who can.
Strategic Monitoring: For those tracking the pulse of the market, the RISI (Resource Information Systems, Inc.) indices and Fastmarkets pulp and paper reports are the "gold standard" for spotting price shifts before a closure is announced. Keeping an eye on "capacity utilization" rates—basically how hard the mills are running—will tell you everything you need to know about who's next on the chopping block.