Paper Process

Paper is made from one of Earth's greatest renewable resources-trees. We use two raw
materials to create our newsprint and publishing papers: wood chips and recycled
newspapers and magazines. Residual wood chips, which remain after sawmills have
optimized the cutting of logs into lumber, are sent to our Longview, Washington,
manufacturing facility in railcars. In addition, 1.5 million recycled newspapers and
magazines are received into our facility every day from all over the western United
States.

Thermo Mechanical Pulp

The wood chips undergo a modern process called thermo mechanical pulping, which
creates a high-yield pulp that is 100 percent more efficient than pulp derived from the
conventional kraft process. This method softens the chips with steam and separates them
into fibers using two large counter-rotating disks.

Recycled Paper
Recycled newspapers and magazines are sorted in a large rotating drum to remove any
plastic, glass, and metal. Water is added and the material becomes pulp slurry. To remove
old ink, the pulp slurry is put in a state-of-the-art flotation tank and tiny air bubbles are
injected. The ink particles float to the surface and are skimmed off. The pulp is then
washed and the water is squeezed off before hydrogen peroxide is added to make the pulp
whiter.
 Producing Paper
Pulp slurry is still 99 percent water. To create paper, the slurry is sprayed onto large
moving screens that form a continuous sheet and moisture is removed using presses and
steam dryers, reducing the water content to about 8 percent. At this point, the material
looks and feels like the paper you expect. It is then wound on a reel and transferred to an
overhead crane, which takes it to a winder. The paper is rewound onto smaller rolls and
cut into specified widths for each customer. After being wrapped and labeled with
customer information, the paper is ready to ship to publishers and printers throughout
North America, Japan, and the rest of the world.

Distribution

Each day, we produce newsprint equivalent to a 30-foot-wide sheet that extends from
Seattle to Miami. This paper is stored in our six-acre shipping warehouse, which uses
state-of-the-art vacuum trucks to minimize damage to rolls. A ship loaded with about
13,500 rolls of paper departs for Japan from our mill every two weeks. And we load an
average of 45 trucks and 10 railcars daily.

NORPAC paper is a sound environmental choice. It comes from a natural, renewable

resource and is recycled and reused time after time. In fact, you could receive some of the
same wood fiber in your daily newspaper as many as 10 times.