Russ Panzer at Paper Tubes’ facilities.
PATERSON, N.J.- Paper Tubes & Cores, Inc. is gearing up for the early April launching of it’s first generation website, which will allow clients to interact with the nearly half-century old institution. Beyond providing information about its products and services, “companies will be able to place orders on it. We also found a paper saving calculator through the Environmental Defense Fund. We are hoping that both our suppliers and customers will be able to plug in some numbers, and we can work with them on it to show exactly how much money and energy they are saving by using our reconfigured products instead of recycled,” said Russ Panzer, executive vice president of Paper Tubes. The company provides its customer with tubes, core, and Gaylord containers (industrial boxes) in any size and quantity. Industries that use the company’s services include commercial printing, textile, paper, plastic fill, as well as packaging and shipping. Elaborating on the process of obtaining the materials that are later modified to meet customer needs, Mr. Panzer said, “we provide a system for generators of cores to store those cores and for us to accumulate those cores, instead of suppliers sending them to a landfill or to a paper recycler where they go through the typical process.” Mr. Panzer added that, “arrangements vary with the supplier depending on the costs that are involved with shipping, storage and things like that. We do try to supply them with some sort of revenue, instead of generally them having to pay to have the materials removed.” Paper Tubes custom-cuts the tubes for reuse and uses a three-point quality control inspection process. The products are inspected once as they arrive at the facility and are unloaded from the trucks; once again as they are cut; and a third time as they are packed for delivery. “It is very important that the cores are perfect when they are shipped out to our customers because they are putting their expensive goods on our cores, so in each area we make sure that we inspect the cores,” said Mr. Panzer, who added that, “besides making sure their integrity is in place, we make sure that there are no contaminants of any kinds on the cores.” The company’s service distribution area primarily encompasses the East Coast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, Canada, and Europe. In the western hemisphere, the company uses its own trucking fleet and is planning to expand its market reach into the West Coast by the end of this year, depending on market conditions, according to Mr. Panzer. Products to Europe are transported by cargo ships.
A core being resized to meet a client’s specifications. Photo courtesy of Paper Tubes.