PAPER BAGS

Waikato Independent, Volume XLIV, Issue 6093, 25 August 1947, Page 2

PAPER BAGS

CONTAINERS FOR FERTILISER DEAL WITH FRENCH GOVERNMENT New Zealand’s critical sack shortage will be eased at the end of next month when, as the' result of a deal with the French Government, the delivery of 10 million paper bags will begin, writes Dick Scott in a Wellington daily. Most of the bags, seven million, will be used by the fertiliser industry and the rest are for packing cement.

Releasing this information last week the acting Director-General of Agriculture, Mr R. B. Tennent, who is also chairman of the Jute Emergency Committee, said that the bags would be made of 6-ply, strong Kraft paper and would be used for three fertilisers only, serpentine, superphosphate and Hesket slag. “It is normal practice in Australia to use paper bags for fertilisers and in the United States practically all fertiliser is distributed in this way,” said Mr Tennent. There were drawbacks as well as advantages in using them, however. They would go 24 to the ton or half the size of the jute sacks now used. While this would lighten work at the farmer's end it would double handling and filling time at' the fertiliser works. Paper bags would keep superphosphate in better condition than jute sacks, he said, but they must be stored away from dampness. Unlike jute sacks they could not be used .several times, though in some countries they were used twice, the second time for lime. Some persons considered that paper bags would be more than an emergency pack; they believed that they would become a permanent feature of fertiliser distribution, Mr Tennent said. While he did not subscribe to that view he thought that with New Zealand’s paper manufacturing resources it would seem reasonable to suppose that we would be able to make many of our own bags. It was agreed that the final answer for the fertiliser trade would be bulk distribution direct from works to farm. “That must come,” Mr Tennent concluded.