Hemp Podcast guest James "Jimmy" Cottrell II is a fourth-generation paper maker at family-owned Cottrell Paper in Saratoga County, New York.
He started cutting the grass in high school and began working at the mill after graduation, and has worked his way up.
Today he is director of maintenance for the mill and vice president of Mill26, Cottrell Paper's hemp paper brand.
The company was founded in 1926 when Cottrell's great-grandfather began making electrical insulation paper.
"We've always produced electrical insulating sheet," Cottrell said. "It's a specialty product, and nobody else in the world makes exactly the same sheet we make."
Cottrell Paper's products are in numerous consumer goods
"We're in cars. We're in automotive. We're in a lot of things that are in your household items, your dishwashers, little parts and pieces everywhere," Cottrell said. "But we've never actually sold to a consumer where people know who Cottrell Paper is."
The company operates in the same paper mill in Rock City Falls, along the Kayaderosseras Creek, where 19th-century industrialist and the so-called "Paper Bag King" George West is said to have invented the paper bag, a story in which Cottrell finds inspiration.
"So to come full circle now 150 years later, to invent a hemp sheet and build another paper bag in this mill...," Cottrell said. "I feel that's a threat to the paper bag itself, because we got something new in the same old place."
Mill26 Hemp Paper
During the days of COVID when the world slowed to a snail's pace, Cottrell put the time to good use.
"We ventured into trying to make a new line," he said. "We got a little slow, like everybody did, and started getting some stalks and stems in, and we started processing some hemp."
At first he bought hemp out of Canada and the Netherlands, but has lately been sourcing material from Texas.
"The United States is catching up, and we're just a little bit behind, you know, overseas everywhere," he said.
He said he wants clean bast fiber at a 95:5 ratio of bast to hurd. The bast fibers are the long strands that make up the outer portion of the stalk and the hurd is the inner woody core, often used for hempcrete construction and horse bedding.
"Everybody has their own classification right now of what 95 five is," he said, "but we really need the cleanest bast fibers around to make the best papers that we can make here at Mill 26."
Cottrell Paper decided to brand their hemp paper line independently as Mill26 to attract new costumers and to avoid any negative association with marijuana.
Cottrell said his warehouse is full and he is ready for business.
"We can sell rolls, we can sell sheets, we can sell coils. We can sell paper bags from size two to size 12. We can print your logo on it up to four colors," he said. "You can buy a thousand quantities all the way up to million quality bags."
The implications of Mill26 hemp paper are wide. A durable, tree-free paper has the potential to disrupt many industries and usher in a new era of regenerative consumer packaging (and maybe the newspapers).
"I really feel that it can help change so many industries and then help change this planet and the ecological footprint and our carbon footprint here at Cottrell Paper itself," Cottrell said.
Mill26 Hemp Paper
https://mill26.com/
Cottrell Paper
https://www.cottrellpaper.com/
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