Hatching Old News - Urban Forest Recyclers

Situated on the east side of Swift Current, Urban Forest Recyclers (UFR) rises from the prairie landscape, a sprawling green building of 130,000 square feet that transforms recycled paper into new molded fiber packaging, with egg filler flats being the highest volume product.

Harvard Developments ( Regina) and a few other partners began the business in 1994, having purchased the plant after its original owners defaulted and ceased operations.

Today, the plant, with a staff of 80, is operating and thriving as UFR Urban Forest Recyclers Inc. It runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, stopping only for maintenance and Christmas. The finished products are shipped all over North America, from Canada to Mexico, with 90% of the product being sent into the U.S. UFR maintains a 40% share of the combined U.S./Canada egg filler flat market. UFR also produces fruit trays, utility trays and specialty bottle packing.

UFR’s process is fairly straightforward. Carefully mixed newsprint and cardboard are added with water to ‘the biggest blender in Western Canada’ to create a slurry. The pulp is then moulded into the product and dried. The entire process from old newsprint to new egg tray takes about 40 minutes — very impressive!

Vast quantities of raw material are required in the production of UFR's molded fiber packaging products. For daily production, approximately 54 tonnes of paper, or three semi-trailers, are used. The raw material comes from many sources including the City of Regina, Cosmopolitan Industries in Saskatoon, Swift Current and surrounding communities, and recycling operations throughout Western Canada.

(Source: Feb. 2008 WasteWatch)

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