A Belfast-based building products company has purchased the shuttered Madison mill, and says it expects manufacturing to resume there by this time next year.
GO Lab closed last Friday on the former UPM paper mill in Madison, which ceased operations about three years ago. Company President Joshua Henry says they’ll eventually produce three different types of wood fiber insulation.
Henry says the products will be made with fiber from softwood chips from Maine sawmills and marketed for use in buildings including single-family homes and larger commercial structures. Plans are to start off with a loose fill insulation.
“It’s very similar to blown cellulose insulation — recycled newsprint. With people reading a lot less newspaper, there’s a lot less newsprint around to be used for insulation. this is a product that can be directly substituted for that,” he says.
Henry says by spring 2021, the company also expects to produce board and batt insulation using equipment that was purchased from manufacturers in Germany.
At full capacity, he expects 120 workers to be employed in Madison, which he says he doesn’t think will be GO Lab’s only manufacturing facility.
