Tissue paper is manufactured inside a paper mill. | Pixabay/Lehoo88
Tissue paper is manufactured inside a paper mill. | Pixabay/Lehoo88
Boasting more than 30,000 workers and generating upwards of $18 billion in annual sales, the state of Wisconsin remains the top producer of paper products in the United States.
“It really is for some of these communities the lifeblood of these communities both historically and currently,” Wisconsin Paper Council President Scott Suder told NBC 26.
Still, experts advise if the state is to maintain its top billing there is work to be done.
"No industry partner can speak to the state of the state's paper industry and say there's nothing to do," University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Center for Customized Research Director Jeffrey Sache said in the NBC 26 report.
The UW-Oshkosh recently completed an 18-month study highlighting the challenges now facing the paper industry, according to the report.
"It has a workforce that is aging fairly significantly and probably more significantly than we've seen in other manufacturing industries," Sache said.
One challenge the report addressed was attracting more workers to the industry.
“We need to go right into the schools,” Suder said. “We need to engage on social media."
Researchers found that young professionals often have a negative perception of the paper industry, or none at all, the report stated.
"We invest over a billion dollars in cleaning up PCBs in the Fox River," told NBC 26. "That is the message that people take in terms of the paper industry as it relates to sustainability."
Suder and Sache both agree industry leaders need to do more to provide a more positive message of innovation.
"It's sustainable," Suder said. "It's renewable. It's recyclable. It's environmentally friendly."
The plan now calls for the findings of the study to be sent to policymakers across the state, with the goal of bringing companies together to develop a unified message as they move forward in growing the industry.
"The industry needed to take back its narrative," Sache said. "And hopefully, what we provided in the framework is a structure of how that story could be told."
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