By Kelsey Abbott, Amelia Martens & Zach Orwig
January 7, 2013
After an eventful evening with a power outage in our hotel, we woke up at 6am, so that we could be out the door and on the road by 7 a.m. By 8 a.m. we were at Klabin, a 113-year-old company, and the biggest paper producer and exporter in Brazil. Klabin exports products to more than 60 countries.
Klabin is big on sustainability and recycles everything; in addition, its goal is to produce wealth without jeopardizing the future of the planet. The company specializes in pine trees and eucalyptus. They have 11,000 hectares and 70 percent of it is natural forest. They make 100 percent recycled paper products.
In order to make the paper, the company does a lot of research on the seedlings, to ensure that they will be productive trees. Klabin plants 30 million seedlings per year. Pine produces softwood and longer fibers, but they produce a stronger paper. Eucalyptus produces a harder wood, with shorter fibers. Pine trees take 14 years to harvest, while eucalyptus takes seven to ten years to harvest.
Klabin makes corrugated cardboard, carton board, paper, and industrial sacks.
In addition to making paper, Klabin produces “phytotherapy” products, like cosmetics, sunscreens, herbal remedies, tea, etc. for its employees, and they also sold some of them to us when we stopped at the pharmacy store. These products are created from the eucalyptus tree and are very good for you.
As a part of its sustainability measures, Klabin has set up a little “zoo” on their nature reserve land. They keep animals that are normally found in forested areas for tourists to stop by and see. We saw monkeys, parrots, cougars, a wild cat, snakes, and other exotic animals. We certainly have seen a variety of wildlife on our trip.
There was a bit of a translation or pronunciation barrier, as our guide from Klabin pronounced paper pulp like “poop” and after holding in laughter for a long time, we finally all lost it. We felt pretty bad for laughing, but his pronunciation provided some much needed comic relief.
The paper factory was extremely hot, but it was amazing to see the huge rolls which weighed several tons coming off of the production line.
When we finished touring the paper production facility (we were not allowed to take photos inside), we went on a cable car ride. On the way back, it was nearly filled to its capacity, leaving many of us feeling a bit claustrophobic, but it makes for a cool story.
Later in the afternoon, we had a four-hour ride to Maringa, where we are spending the night in another Hotel Deville. We made a short pit stop at a Dutch restaurant, where Nadiel encouraged all of us to order pie. Those who ordered said the pie was very tasty, and they really enjoyed it.
We are looking forward to another full day of learning tomorrow before we head for Iguassu Falls later this week.