Recycled paper and packaging company Pratt Industries opened its new box factory in Cedar Hill, Texas, on Tuesday. The $253 million, 1.1 million-square-foot plant will produce 100% recycled corrugated boxes, in-store displays and “retail specialty products”.
This is Georgia-based Pratt’s fifth box factory in Texas, and the largest and most technologically advanced in the United States, Executive Chairman Anthony Pratt said during the opening event. He applauded the resulting job creation, saying this facility will bring 375 “green-collar manufacturing jobs” to Texas, upping the company’s workforce in that state to more than 1,000 people. The company’s total workforce is 11,500 people.
“This factory diverts waste that would have gone to landfill and turns it into cardboard boxes,” he said. “Recycling is an important weapon against climate change, because as things decay in the landfill they emit methane gas, which is 84 times worse for the environment” than other greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
In November 2022, the Courier & Press showed the slow highway journey of the new factory’s massive boiler to its home in the Dallas suburb. The Dallas Business Journal recently detailed the numerous specifications the site required to bring the project to fruition, such as availability of water and large amounts of natural gas.
Pratt Industries, the nation’s fifth-largest corrugated packaging company, also is partnering with the city of Cedar Hill and its school district on a training and development program.
The Cedar Hill facility is Pratt’s 71st in the United States. Last year, the company opened a corrugated box plant in Park City, Kansas, and its new recycled paper mill in Henderson, Kentucky, is still anticipated to open this fall. Last year, Pratt pledged to invest $5 billion in American recycling and clean energy infrastructure over the next 10 years.
