Massive Abandoned Paper Mill - Machines & Equipment Still Inside 

Sir yes Sir. Love it ❤

"On a sad note, this entire facility will likely be demolished ..." Sad note", really? That clean up should have happened long ago, circa 2007.

I believe that machine with all the rollers is a corrigator machine. It made endless sheets of wide uncut paper rolls. Its a smaller one actually.

Mobile Instinct floppy disk

Mobile Instinct , was that the Passaic River nearby ?

gary walter wow. thats crazy. what are the odds you would stumble upon this video, let alone that these guys would pick up your license out of the thousands of items.

Gary Walter... Wow! Pretty cool man. My paper mill, once held 4,000 employees and 15 paper machines. We're down to 1 tissue machine and no wood mill or bleach plant anymore, and 280 employees. 80% of my mill looks just like in this video. Very sad and nostalgic.

gary walter real cool Gary. What was the name of the company and mill? I work at Crane Currency in western Massachusetts.

@@Redgonetogray originally called Riegle Paper then James River then several more owners. It shut down last under the owner of FiberMark. My family all worked here as well.

@@s.pursell8901 What caused it to close?

You know your shit ,sir,👍

@@gergehimon2177 Thanks.

That looks quite small for a wet end of a paper machine. It looks like a twin wire press for groundwood pulp or maybe the saveall for broke pulp. 12:00 is where they get to where the paper machines were. All the equipment for those were pulled out it looks like.

Woodfiber mill, Squamish?

Engineered closures so these places and all records to be destroyed. Served its purpose for the controllers for a long enough time. Not built by us just turned on by colonists after arrival.

Our mill has Beloit in it

2 of 3 our paper machines are Beloit. One was built in 1920. Still running. The other built in early 50’s. Making corrugated medium.

Beloit is stamped on the dryer at our mill

Beloit wi?

Must have done lots of business to require rail cars

Do they have an health issues?

100%

Like RoboCop 2!

12:30, that's where the paper machines with the dryer, press, wire sections, etc. were; and at 16:33, that's the lab where they would take samples to see if the paper met quality specs. I was in paper here in the US for a while too.

I worked in similar paper mills in Canada. This video reminds me of one of them 🙂

Not a papermill machinist but figured that was something to do with pulping trees

Gives you an idea of the "giant sucking sound" Ross Perot warned about in the 90's, or the China trade deals our leaders jumped into for globalization that Trump warns about today. The American worker gets sold out.

@@curtzblues ya unfortunately we have the Democrats to blame for that. Don't know what the notice was back then and I'm baffled how it could have been spun to be good for America. I'm sure it was cheaper goods and increased stock prices for 401k's. Americans are so sorry sighted and incapable of critical thinking. It's so sad. Current administration has put us far behind in green tech that could have generated tons of high paying jobs and helped the environment. Hopefully 2021 will be much better.

Truth 🤦. Curtzblues funny Ross Perot was my first election pick out of high school for prez 😁

Believe it!!!

@@joshrockwellchem Yea, how's that much better in 2021 working for ya? The people that sold America down the river 70s thru the '00s are back in to finish us off and you see it as better, that is what's wrong! They also sold out the US steel industry in the 70s and 80s too dirty for America.

Try being a millwright in these places. We have a few old ones down in the Philly area

@@kenashcom3703 Steamfitter from Ontario, worked on many like this||

You been in the Riegel/Curtis Specialty Papers mill in Milford, N.J?

you breathe enough asbestos to hurt you yet? this guy better be careful poking around these old factories and stuff

@@lindabingham394 Asbestos is only dangerous when in dust form, floating through the air. When it's undisturbed (like inside of a wall, ceiling, etc.), it's completely harmless. Ironically, most "Asbestos abatement" jobs do the the very thing that MAKES it dangerous. They disturb it by tearing it down, which spreads the fibers into the air, so the poor folks working in the building where the abatement is taking place get to breathe those very fibers! If left alone, it is 100% harmless, but someone gets to make money off of removing it. I always thought it was funny how the abatement workers wear masks while working with the now-disturbed asbestos (as they should), but the poor employees who just work in that office, hospital, factory, etc. get no protection during the abatement process.

Let me an my crew in there for a few years with cutting torches an equipment then mature nature can have it

Mother nature- damn spell ckeck

What the hell does that mean?

Amen to that

It's abandoned, no one goes there anymore.

No one died there (probably), so you could argue with your brain that there wouldn't be any ghosts around in case you believe it.

@@dusathemaid I work at a large paper mill with over 1000 employees. We have a death dang near every year some years it’s been 10 deaths.

@@Teb.11610 Fuck... How do they die, exactly?

That is so sad. And still, people scream about "useless" safety regulations. Worker protection and safety training should be a priority. People take chances and upper management often push workers to do so.

Mike Carlson Hey i spent 12 years switching all the barges for the peco crane in camas and my dad spent 38 years in the wood mill and on the water down there! It sure is a ghost town now....

@@chainsawmike01 Wow, that's cool. I'm currently winderman on the last machine running (#11 tissue). We're all purchased pulp now so ya, no more woodmill since #20 shut down (my old job)

I bet going from #20 to 11 is like taking a step back in time.... haha

I'd like to see a video of a Mill that's still in operation..

The paper mill you work at is almost as big? How many does it employ?

Maxid1 Hilarious! but actually the place would be perfect for a low budget horror flick. The Mangler from the machine room.

Maxid1 always carry either a gun or a big knife when exploring abandoned buildings, animals, and homeless people can be dangerous

@@saintmichaelsarchangel2644 I prefer a chainsaw and a leather mask.

Maxid1 but leather face’s mask wasn’t made of leather it was just flesh

Maxid1 however point taken

L Ledlow, absolutely right. I worked in a Paper Mill until I was furloughed last May, whole mill was shut down. The last place I worked was a warehouse but when I worked in the mill itself there was asbestos everywhere on the walls and also used to cover piping. The warehouse where I last worked had it mostly on the outerwalls.

in that mill the asbestos was removed in 1990

Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us:)

Funny I was thinking the same things as they went through the different levels. Explaining in my mind what everything was used for.

I live in Western MA myself, not many paper mills left.

Riegel Paper Company. Fibremark was final operator.

Giggitee O'Yeah no longer. So sad.

cbearce1 Pittsburgh has a lot of abandoned Steel Mills and foundry’s on the outskirts of the city limits, kinda creepy to be going along a back road only to pass a condemned Steel foundry yard

Erie, home of Hammermill Paper. I did a ton of work there as a contractor.

It's Railroad track not train track. And yes the railroad is a primary way to ship paper products as well as raw materials for paper manufacturing. I don't understand what it's so hard for some people to figure this out.

@@railroadmike6843 ??

@@thatgirl3757 yes?

@That Girl...Your comment was appreciated. I was curious why the tracks were there.

@@laurahicks9558 Ty Laura

It's Silent Hill in real life. . I'm having nightmares tonight

@@howiegruwitz3173 Dont have nightmare tonight :)

Worthless massive junk.

Figure in the cost of asbestos abatement and you might break even.

ahh yes

Cost too much to remove and resell all the parts, tools, equipment, etc. Once you've let everyone go, who is left to clean the place out? The SUITS?

Yeah man, a memorable explore for sure.

Thanks Scott!

Or recycled paper to the big hopper he called the wheel of death or something.

Actually, the boilers were oil fired; or at least the two burner wands that were shown were for oil. They had a line for the oil plus a line for steam for atomizing the heavy #6 fuel oil so it could burn.

The tracks were to bring in the slave workers in cattle cars every morning

@@Automedon2 Actually not even funny.

@@SeekerGoOn2013 its, its kinda funny

Might be because there are damn few pristine forests left? A few areas in parks, everything else second growth, logged repeatedly in the past.

The excuse to start relocating 3verything to China to fulfill the globalists new world order plans

Save paper wipe your ass with a spotted owl... : o)

It is sad this one closed. I feel for the people who had to find new jobs. On a positive note, there have been a few paper mills recently opened in the past 10 years. Jus a few that I know of that is, I’m sure there has been more

Believe it or not but this company was closed during the Obama Administration and this is one of the businesses that China replaced and so many more.

@@nicolemarie2989 Yes, didn't Marcal Paper Company in New Jersey reopen on a limited scale after their massive fire?

I work in the pulp and paper industry here in the US. We still make lots of stuff. Just in newer and modern and more efficient factories. This is a remnant of a terribly managed company that refused to invest a penny in its facility and tried to baling wire and duct tape its way to profit. This companies biggest competitor isn’t China. It’s in North Carolina. Or Georgia or Alabama.

Thanks Kenny

With him being so young, wasn't sure if he was joking with the "younger" crowd or he didn't know. LOL

Floppy disk were still used in the 2000's. Desktop computers of that era came equipped with them.

You kids don't know nothing about that five-and-a-quarter.

@@RichardHartness or the 8" singled sided.

Screw the OJ joke because he is a joke, the 1.21 gigahertz Dr. Emmit Brown joke had me Rollin, Back To The Future rules!!

Thanks Mark

Your welcome brother!

Depends on the size of the city, Einstein

@@johnchalleen3278 75000. Paper mill's smell horrible.

Not to mention they pollute the river with deadly toxins and the ground with as well. I would HAZARD a guess the plant is full of lead paint, asbestos, deadly working conditions, and from the looks of it - was operated by A**holes!

None of the former Riegel mills in this area processed pulp. It came in from elsewhere in sheets. When these mills first started, they used linen fiber and salt grass to make paper.

Lindsey Allison Westhaven you have no idea what you are talking about. I work in a paper mill and we have very strict guidelines that allow us to operate. Everything that is released into the air or water is treated and measured for emissions. Nothing can get to the ground. These facilities are set up with containment where a spill is possible and all drainage is run to a treatment plant in site.

The thing

Well put!

What a High-Schoolish business model! Most US high-tech manufacturing facilities have moved to China or elsewhere. The paper business is still alive, when one looks at all those glossy commercial brochures, magazines, etc., widely distributed to the public. But the competitive market had seen to it that some paper mills had to close and move to cheaper labor-cost countries. It's all about capitalist economy and globalization.

It's very dangerous business, only safe way is to dynamite the whole plant, then go in with torches, demo saws, and hydraulic shears to cut up all the pipes, tanks, I beams, etc. You'd have to line up a lot of permits, contractors, equipment, etc. Would be extremely lucrative in the END, but the front end costs would be very high.

There is a large paper mill in Baltimore Ohio and i can smell it sometimes wen i go down state rout 37 to Lancaster ohio from newark ohio

Yep and if a smaller town smelled like sulpher or eggy you know that town was alive !!!!

We're 35 miles from one and if the wind is right we can smell it.

I remember driving with my parents from NJ to FL in the early 80s and one of the states that we passed through stunk so bad (Carolinas I think) and my parents telling me it was a paper mill omg it was so horrible. It smelled just like sewer.

Where in nj is this

Marcos Ossandon it’s Warren Glen, about 20 min outside Phillipsburg, just go on 519 from Phillipsburg toward Milford and you’ll pass it

I was going to make a similar comment. Imagine people who worked for decades in a place like this.

I totally agree

I can’t stand to see people vandalize stuff when they could leave it all as memories and history

@@StephenBrewer89 When we do New Wave Urbex Smash on old buildings, we often break up computer monitors. It's one of the first and most fun things to bust up. Just get an old block of concrete or other heavy object found on site and heave it through the screen! Or if it doesn't break, drop the monitor down some stairs. That always smashes the whole sucker up. Everything will need to be smashed when they do the demolition, so we are just helping that process.

@@PreservationEnthusiast You're clearly an idiot trying to justify idiocy.

@@Ganiscol Have you seen a channel on You Tube called "How ridiculous" They smash things and drop stuff. We are doing the same, but inside abandoned buildings which are going to get demolished. If you haven't shoved a large monitor out of 4th floor window you are missing out.

I agree.

Walter Johnson these jobs did NOT go to China, they were done away with by the new, tighter government environmental regulations along with the fact that it finally outlived it’s useful life and could no longer be refitted and retrofitted economically to keep producing paper. It’s much cheaper to build a new mill with all new equipment and technology, that is four times the size of this one, that will produce 10-20 times the paper because of higher efficiency and higher speeds. It’s just gets to the point that it’s not safe anymore to continue putting bandaids on these places to try and keep them running when its just time to shut them down and rebuild elsewhere. China’s paper SUCKS anyways!! Most companies in the U.S. will not use china paper because it’s so horrendous. Whenever you get a box that has a grayish or yellowish color to it that does not have the normal brown color to it, that is Chinese paper. There is no strength to the paper or the box it’s made from. They do not have good timber over there to make paper from and they add garbage and dead animals and anything else they can throw in the pulper to stretch the paper fiber further and it causes the paper to be crap! I was a paper maker in a couple of the finest, biggest mills in the U.S. owns by Weyerhaeuser Paper Company at the time and I worked in every job from the Utility job which is a clean up boy and worked my way thru all the “dry end” jobs up thru the coveted “Wet End Operator” or “Machine Tender” position and finally as an assistant team leader. It was an absolutely rewarding career and very, very interesting!but it’s not an easy job! Long hard hot and cold days. Most days were 12-16 hours and there were times you would work an entire month before getting a day off, but I wouldn’t change it for the world!!

Don Pfeiffer they closed and tore down the paper mill and box plant here. Ed Ball from the DuPont family had built it decades ago. St. Joe paper was a major employer and one of the largest private land owners in Florida. You are right about the quality of paper from China. So many jobs are going overseas that it seems like these would have too. Remember when Walmart boasted they only sold products made in America?

Yea there is a lot of information available about plants like this. It is sad when people go through a place like this and are clueless about it. This entire country was built on facilities like this

You can thank Bill Clinton in 1996 for the move to China. NAFTA and removing all those terr ifs = companies move to China and pay less for labor and ship back to the USA.

XD

That's exactly why I quit working at International paper. The new generation isn't too fond of working in a depressing environment. Dark and gloomy. Still running amber lights that are dim as shit everywhere u go I stead of white lighting to brighten the place. Shit was like working in hell all day, it's was just dark and hot.

Asbestos has to be labeled in these facilities and they do remove it if the area has to be disturbed for further maintenance or upgrades so there isn’t as much around as you would think

I'm sure that's why it hasn't already been demo'd.

I agree, tons of brass valves, gauges, gears, pipes, whistles, bolts, etc. I could spend a year looting that place! 🤣