A UAE family enterprise whose engineers, factories and service teams have kept essential industries running for generations.
Union Paper Mills produces a thousand tonnes of recycled containerboard a day, all of it from paper recovered across the UAE. The country's first recycled paper mill, established in 1987, exports to markets as far as Latin America and Australia.
Union Paper Mills (UPM) is a UAE pioneer in recycled paper manufacturing, transforming recovered paper into containerboard for the corrugated packaging industry. Established in Dubai in 1987, UPM has grown from the UAE's first recycled paper mill into a major industrial operation built around a clear principle: recover resources already in circulation and put them back to productive use.
Every reel produced by UPM begins with recovered paper sourced from homes, malls, factories, warehouses and businesses across the UAE. Instead of relying on virgin fibre, this material is collected, sorted and returned to manufacturing as a valuable industrial raw material.
From its UAE manufacturing base, UPM supplies corrugated packaging manufacturers across the Gulf and international markets, combining decades of paper-making expertise with an increasingly integrated approach to resource recovery, circular manufacturing and industrial value creation.
Behind this operation is an integrated M.A.H.Y. Khoory Group ecosystem. Each stage of the journey is supported by a dedicated Group company or division.
The Group's Recyclable Waste Management Division is dedicated to sourcing and collecting recovered paper every day to secure the raw-material requirements of the mills. Green Arabia, the Group's integrated waste management solutions provider, also supports UPM's recovered-paper supply while serving the broader waste management needs of external customers. The division collects around 37,000 tonnes a month, with Green Arabia contributing a further 2,000 tonnes from its customers.
At nine yards across the UAE, recovered paper is sorted by grade, baled and weighed. The operation is further supported by Group logistics and industrial infrastructure, strengthening connectivity across the value chain. Greenland Transport, the Group's own fleet, delivers the bales to the mills in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
At the mills, bales are weighed on arrival and stored by grade, then pulped with water and agitation into a mix that is around 99% water.
Screens remove tape, staples and plastic, and around 90% of the material received goes on to become paper.
The fibre is spread across a moving wire, where it drains into a continuous sheet that is pressed and then dried over steam-heated cylinders, with the process water filtered and reused.
Finally, the paper is wound onto reels, cut to each customer's required width, and wrapped, labelled and loaded for delivery.
These products return to the economy as essential inputs for corrugated packaging, extending the useful life of fibre and reducing dependence on virgin forest resources. Most of UPM's output is supplied to independent corrugated packaging manufacturers across the Gulf and in markets as far as Latin America and Australia. Within the Group, National Paper Industries converts it into corrugated packaging in Ajman, and Union Corrugated Packaging Industries will do the same in Abu Dhabi from January 2027. Once that packaging has served its purpose, it is recovered again.
Together, these capabilities create a practical circular model: materials are recovered locally, transformed through UAE-based manufacturing and returned to the economy as productive industrial inputs.
Recovered in the UAE. Made in the UAE. Returned to industry.
This model supports the UAE's wider ambition to build a more competitive, resource-efficient and sustainable industrial economy. By recovering materials locally and converting them into products manufactured in the UAE, UPM contributes to circularity, local value creation and reduced dependence on virgin resources, aligning naturally with the country's industrial development, decarbonisation ambitions and Make it in the Emirates agenda.
Every tonne of containerboard is manufactured from recovered paper, with no reliance on virgin fibre or forest resources.
The circular model extends beyond paper. The Group's Solid Waste Management Division recovers waste wood that can be converted into fuel for the mills' boilers, putting another waste stream to productive use. A solar power plant at the Dubai mill has generated 3 GWh of electricity a year since 2019, avoiding around 1,200 tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually, while turbo blowers installed in 2023 have reduced electrical load by a further 550 kW.
Material rejected during screening is sorted again by the Group's Solid Waste Management Division. Usable fibre is returned to the mill, plastics are sent for recycling, and the remainder is processed into fuel for cement plants. The Dubai mill is working towards zero waste to landfill.
Process water is treated in anaerobic reactors at the Abu Dhabi mill, while an odour control system has operated at the Dubai mill's effluent treatment plant since 2023.
UPM operates three paper machines across its manufacturing operations in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, supported by in-house quality laboratories and energy-generation capabilities.
The Dubai mill is where recycled paper manufacturing in the UAE began. It produces the full range of UPM grades across two paper machines and generates much of its own energy through a biomass boiler, a steam turbine and a solar power plant.
of fluting and core board, 120 to 450 gsm, on a 2,500 mm deckle, equipped with a slitter to supply core board in reels and bobbins.
of fluting, test liner and semi-kraft liner, 112 to 200 gsm, on a 3,700 mm deckle. A twin-wire machine with a shoe press, commissioned in 2005 and upgraded with a new Valmet quality control system in 2024.
The Abu Dhabi mill, operated as Al Dhafra Paper Manufacturing, brought a new level of scale to the Group's paper manufacturing. Its single machine produces more than both Dubai machines combined, supported by a dedicated fibre treatment plant, on-site power generation and fully automatic reel packing. With both mills at full capacity since 2018, it is also where UPM's next phase of growth is planned.
of test liner and fluting, 90 to 200 gsm, on a 4,900 mm deckle. Equipped with a dilution headbox, a Voith NipcoFlex press and Valmet online quality control.
Planned for commissioning around 2030, adding value-added grades such as white top test liner.
Quality management for the recycling, manufacture and distribution of paper and paperboard
Environmental management across collection, paper manufacturing and effluent treatment
Occupational health and safety management across both mills
Energy management, covering how the mills measure and reduce energy consumption per tonne
FSC Recycled: fluting, test liner and board made from reclaimed material, traceable from sourcing to finished reel
"Union Paper Mills is a modern, technologically advanced and reliable containerboard partner. What we bring together is product quality, consistency, innovation, sustainability and customer service."
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