Milling for paper may be an overlooked industry, but it impacts almost everyone's day-to-day life. Every cardboard box, receipt, printed paper, books, tissues, and packing paper starts with raw plant fibers that originated with processed paper that starts with the milling industry.

Currently, the majority of mills source their primary fibers from wood. The first step to sourcing wood fibers is to cut logs into wood chips and strip the log of the bark. The wood chips, with the bark removed, can then be further processed into pulp by creating a wet mass of the raw collars fibers of the wood. Pulp is actually categorized into two types, the first is mechanical pulp, and the second is chemical pulp. Mechanical pulp keeps the majority of the wood and just breaks it down into smaller fibers, this is most commonly used for newsprint. Unlike mechanical pulp, chemical pulp actually breaks down the fibers to the most singular form of pulp and removes the natural glue of wood fibers called lignin. This method is what creates writing paper and packing pulp as chemical devoid of the lignin is clearer and stronger pulp.

What follows puplping is the washing and then screening process, where the pulp is washed to remove the impurities or foreign bodies that may be present. Based on what product the mill is making, they may add dyes, filler, or coatings. Mills also often utilize mixed recycled paper. Utilized paper is a processed recycled source that can be converted back into a pulp by water and can be cleaned of ink, and can be recycled again into a paper which not only saves resources, but also wastes less to throw into a landfill.

Then, the pulp is combined with a water layer and then placed on a screen that is moving. After the water is removed, the fibers begin to form a bond and create a sheet of paper. This sheet then goes through a set of drills to remove further moisture, and finally, a set of heated chambers to remove the moisture that may have remained on the sheet.

Finally, one last smoothing process is done to the paper or it is rolled or cut to the desired size.