Ken Collin

Ken Collin

An Auckland pulp and paper mill each year deals with enough waste paper to fill Eden Park to the top of the stands.

Ken Collin, chief executive of the Carter Holt Harvey mill at Penrose, and Craig Forman, chief executive of Fullcircle, the paper collection business that supplies it, like that statistic.

They do not think Aucklanders realise they take paper from the street kerbs at no cost to ratepayers, and pass it to the mill that turns it into paper for cardboard box makers.

If they did not do it, Aucklanders would have to pay $40 a tonne to bury waste paper or export it.

But the statistic of the day is "zero 230".

That is the goal the mill has just achieved: zero work accidents and 230 tonnes of paper produced a day last month.

It was a production record and a world-class performance for a mill of its size and type.

Collin said mills did not have to be huge to be efficient producers.

Carter Holt's biggest pulp and paper mill, Kinleith, near Tokoroa, produces nearly 600,000 tonnes a year of pulp and paper from wood fibre and waste paper.

Penrose takes in 95,000 tonnes of waste paper a year and produces 80,000 tonnes of recycled paper.

Penrose was opened by New Zealand Forest Products in 1982 to produce 20,000 tonnes a year and has been upgraded since.

About $100 million has been invested at the site, which is handily positioned on top of an artesian water bore.

The mill takes in about 90 per cent of the paper Aucklanders put out on their kerbs each year.

Penrose exports about 45 per cent of its output and just under half of the rest goes to Carter Holt Harvey's box making plants.

It also has customers in Asia and the United States.

Kinleith mostly breaks down wood chips and pulp logs into fibre and turns it into high grade linerboard paper used for boxes in horticulture and other industries.

It also takes in about 110,000 tonnes of waste paper to recycle.

Fullcircle collects paper around the country, including from Stewart Island.

The amount available is seasonal and there is usually a glut around Christmas.