With readily available timber and a location ear Puget Bay, Crown Zellerbach real- ized the potential of the area and built a new kraft paper mill, which began operations as the Zellerbach kraft paper mill (National Paper Products Company) on October 6, 1928. The mill has been in continuous production since then. In the same year, Zellerbach acquired Crown Willamette Pulp and Paper Company in Camas, WA, and the mill became known as the Port Townsend Mill Division of the Crown Zellerbach Corporation.
It went through various owners over the years, until 2001, when it became part of the privately-held Port Townsend Paper family of companies. This “ family” also includes Crown Packaging and Boxmaster, well known for their high-quality corrugated and paperboard. Plant locations are in Port Townsend, WA, Burnaby, Kelowna and Richmond, BC.
The Port Townsend Paper Company (PTPC) is the largest employer in the area, manufacturing 325,000 tons/yr of unbleached paper and cardboard. The firm manufactures a wide range of high quality pulp and kraft paper grades including: lightweight linerboard; corrugating medium; unbleached converting grades; and specialty grades, such as gumming and laminating kraft. Its Discovery Kraft is a high converting grade blended from recycled material and virgin fibers.
Equipment at PTPC includes digesters, paper machines, recovery boilers, steam turbines, chip screeners, screens, pumps, motors, gearboxes, washers, filters, pressure washers and related equipment that runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It also operates a state-of-the-art old corrugated containers (OCC) recycling plant. To keep this equipment operating, a full-time maintenance department of 72 people works around the clock; personnel includes 27 millwrights,
eight pipefitters, two oilers, five yard crew, four machinists, 10 electricians, seven instrument techs and nine supervisors.
The nature of the kraft pulping process requires that strict local environmental laws must be followed. To that end, Port Townsend Paper maintains a full-time environmental team which interacts with local, state and federal agencies to monitor and report compliances to regulatory agencies. The team works out of a modern and well equipped laboratory that participates in EPA and industry quality control audits
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