The event, attended by over 200 past and present employees, suppliers, customers and local residents, kicked off a year of celebrations for the Smurfit Kappa site.

A commemorative publication, Birmingham Memories, charting the site’s history has also been printed to mark the milestone.

Founded in 1862 by Thomas Bird Smith, sir John Benjamin Stone and Frederick Knight, the mill - part of one the world’s largest cardboard box manufacturers – now employs 110 people and produces between 500 and 700 tonnes of packaging paper a year, which is sold to customers for conversion into cardboard boxes.

The Smurfit Kappa SSK site uses around 40,000 tonnes of recycled paper and cardboard collected annually through local initiatives around Birmingham. 

Congratulating SSK on its achievements Birmingham City Council’s strategic director for environment and culture Sharon Lea said recycling continued to be a very important part of the council's strategy to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.

She added: "Being able to recycle Birmingham paper and cardboard in Birmingham whilst creating local jobs for Birmingham people is a fantastic good news story for the city."

SSK, along with the Townsend Hook in Kent, comprises Smurfit Kappa Group’s (SKG) UK Paper Division containerboard mill operations, both supplying the same range of products to the European corrugated case making industry.

Meanwhile SKG Q1 results for 2012 showed "essentially stable revenue" and strong EBITDA results of €246m (£197m), up 1% on the same period in 2011.

Results for the financial year 2011/12 showed earnings growth of 12% to just over €1bn – the second best annual results in the group’s history, according to group chairman Liam O’Mahony.