Tales from the NZ Paper Industry, #1
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to write down some of the many stories my time working in heavy industry. So here’s a start.
When I travelled north in October/November last year, I managed to catch up with half a dozen of my former colleagues from the pulp and paper industry. I really enjoyed the chance to talk about some of the highs (and lows) of the more than 20 years I spent in the forest products sector. Looking back, we were really fortunate to start work in that industry at a time it was on a real high. New Zealand had a huge competitive advantage compared with the rest of the world. New Zealand’s large, very well managed and sustainable plantation forests of pinus Radiata could produce high-quality cellulose fibre at a very low cost. What’s more, due to a quirk of that species growing in NZ, we could get a wide range of products once we understood how to segregate and use the various parts of the tree (but that’s another story).
(If you mainly visit this blog for the pictures, you may be disappointed in this post. But if you’re still interested, read on …..)