Pratt Industries (Pratt) is the United States’ sixth largest paper and packaging company with more than 3,500 employees working in over 20 states. The Company’s three paper mills produce approximately 1,000,000 tons of paper annually (2,550 miles of paper per day) and it is the only major paper company in the USA producing 100 percent recycled paper and packaging. Pratt has been recognized globally for its environmental standards and its commitment to ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’.
Pratt’s Staten Island N.Y. facility is responsible for taking in almost 50 percent of the waste paper (newspapers, magazines, computer paper etc.) generated in New York City and recycling that waste into corrugated cardboard boxes and approximately 360,000 tons of paper annually. Facing higher natural gas and electric costs, the Company turned to energy efficiency as a way to mitigate the rise in costs. Working in partnership with National Grid, the Staten Island facility focused on making improvements to its central boiler plant as a way to reduce its natural gas consumption. The installation of enhanced combustion control devices (both manual and computerized) and a new boiler economizer will result in an annual savings of approximately 867,000 therms of natural gas and $1,000,000.
Going forward Pratt’s leadership team in Staten Island will work with National Grid to identify further measures that will increase the facility’s energy efficiency. A forthcoming engineering study will identify many of these measures and the two companies will work in partnership to lay out a multi-year energy efficiency plan. Many of Pratt’s other manufacturing facilities include a cogeneration plant and the Company is currently evaluating whether that would be feasible in Staten Island.