Updated Feb. 18

early $6 million in taxpayer money will be coming back to Haywood County after Attorney General Jeff Jackson and Gov. Josh Stein announced that a settlement has been reached in a lawsuit alleging that Pactiv Evergreen had violated the terms of a decade-old economic development grant agreement when it closed its Canton paper mill in 2023.

Following up on a campaign promise he made just over a year ago, newly-elected North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson stood within eyeshot of what used to be Pactiv Evergreen’s Canton paper mill to remind the company that he wasn’t going to ease up on a lawsuit filed by his predecessor, now-Gov. Josh Stein.

According to a press release issued Dec. 9, a merger between Pactiv Evergreen and Charlotte-based Novolex will provide better customer service, increased product innovation and additional distribution capabilities across North America, but what the merger means for Pactiv’s lawsuits, its languishing 185-acre parcel in Canton and the future of the town’s wastewater treatment, isn’t yet clear. 

Hurricane Helene has dealt serious damage to Pactiv Evergreen’s shuttered Canton paper mill, but the St. Louis-based demolition and development company owner trying to buy the 185-acre parcel remains undeterred. 

Hurricane Helene has dealt serious damage to Pactiv Evergreen’s shuttered Canton paper mill, but the St. Louis-based demolition and development company owner trying to buy the 185-acre parcel remains undeterred.

Pactiv Evergreen has filed a request with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality to make “major” modifications to the discharge permit for its wastewater treatment facility in Canton.  

The effects of deadly flooding in 2021 are still being felt in the town of Canton, but thanks to a federal funding request from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), the town is poised to take another huge step toward recovery.

A rezoning of the former paper mill parcel in Canton has replaced an expiring industrial development moratorium, maintaining the town’s limited control of the site despite the possibility of an impending sale to a developer with unknown intentions. 

Pactiv Evergreen, owner of the now-shuttered paper mill in Canton, announced last week that it had agreed to sell its Pine Bluff, Arkansas paper mill and an extrusion facility off Howell Mill Road in Waynesville to a South American company for $110 million during the fourth quarter of 2024, if traditional closing conditions are met and foreign antitrust regulators approve. 

The shuttered paper mill at the heart of Canton is still there — for now. One day it won’t be, but a forthcoming monument will ensure the generations of papermakers that made Canton great won’t ever be forgotten.