Flint Group launches 2023 Sustainability Report

The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) today announced that nearly 68% of paper consumed in the United States (67.9%) was recycled in 2022. The paper recycling rate held approximately steady to the 2021 rate and has remained consistently high. In fact, the paper recycling rate has met or exceeded 63% each year since 2009. In 2022, the recycling rate for old corrugated containers (OCC), also known as cardboard, was 93.6%, an increase over last year's rate. Meanwhile, the 3-year average (2020-2022) for OCC was 91.3%.

Our Plymouth Mill has taken another step toward a more sustainable future thanks to the success of a recent resource conservation project. Just one year after the installation of a cooling tower and new heat exchangers, the mill’s closed-loop system for heating process water has exceeded expectations by dramatically reducing daily water consumption and fuel costs. Last May, the team installed a cooling tower and two large heat exchangers to reclaim waste heat from the mill and use it to reduce steam consumption. While the resource conservation project was originally expected to eliminate the use of about 11 million gallons of river water per day, Operations Manager David Council says the system is performing better than expected, saving approximately 18 million gallons of water per day. Before the team installed the new equipment, the mill used water from the nearby Roanoke River to cool mill processes. The mill returned the water to the river in the same condition, only slightly warmer. With the addition of the cooling tower and heat exchangers, the mill now has a closed-loop system that reclaims heat from the mill’s evaporation equipment and transfers it to process water. The reclaimed heat reduces the mill’s steam load, which means it burns less fuel in the boilers to make steam.

Amazon announced the company’s 65th and 66th renewable energy projects. Amazon’s newest renewable energy project in the EU will be located in Cork, Ireland, and will be the second Amazon Wind Farm in the Republic of Ireland. Once complete, the new Amazon Wind Farm will provide 23.2 megawatts (MW) of renewable capacity, with expected generation of 68,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of clean energy annually. Amazon’s newest renewable energy project in the U.S. will be located in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, and will be the seventh Amazon Solar Farm in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Once complete, the new Amazon Solar Farm will provide 45 megawatts (MW) of renewable capacity and is expected to generate 100,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of clean energy annually. Both projects are expected to begin producing clean energy in 2020 and will supply clean energy to the company’s Amazon Web Services datacenters, which power Amazon and millions of AWS customers globally. Additionally, Amazon’s investments in renewable energy were recently recognized in the Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA) 2018 Solar Means Business Report, which ranked Amazon #1 in the U.S. for amount of corporate on-site solar installed in 2018, and #2 for total amount of solar installed to date. Amazon’s solar projects in the U.S. have offset the CO2 equivalent of more than 200 million miles of truck deliveries. Globally, Amazon has 66 renewable energy projects – including 51 solar rooftops – that are expected to generate 1,342 MW of renewable capacity and deliver more than 3.9 million MWh of clean energy annually.