Production at the the RDM Villa Santa Lucia board mill has been standing still since last July. Now, the company plans to close the mill for good.
Italy's recycled board manufacturer RDM Group mulls definitive closure of the company's Villa Santa Lucia mill in Italy. Yesterday, the group informed the representatives of the trade unions that it would initiate the procedure to wind up production activities at the Villa Santa Lucia plant with the consequent dismissal of 163 employees.
According to RDM, the decision to initiate the closure of the mill was a precautionary measure resulting from a protracted production stoppage that has been ongoing since July 2023. Production at the Villa Santa Lucia board mill had to be interrupted over and over again in the last three to four years because of unresolved issues and legal disputes that were blocking RDM from discharging the mill's waste water and sludge via the existing comunal sewage tretament plan. The latest attempts to resume the operations were reportedly unsuccesful after the responsible authorities introduced a series of new restrictions on the mill in November 2023.
The RDM Villa Santa Lucia board mill houses one board machine with an installed capacity of up to 220,000 tpy of white-lined chipboard (WLC), mostly GD-Liner. The mill also operates a finishing departement.
