The paper industry is in urgent need of recycled paper.

A friend met a few days ago and she said that the media has been advocating the concept of recycled paper. She is very concerned about this matter and has been consciously retaining used paper. However, she waited until she resigned and no one came. Recycle these papers. This situation is believed to have been encountered by many people. The words of friends have led the paper industry to a heavy topic. On the one hand, we are vigorously promoting the concept of regeneration. On the one hand, no one has effectively implemented it. In the end, what is the problem? What are the bottlenecks in the promotion of recycled paper?

Paper industry calls for "regeneration"

Waste paper refers to waste (including a small number of printed publications) after the consumption of paper products. One of the characteristics of this waste is that, after consumption by the people, the nature of the main fiber does not change and it can still be used for papermaking. Therefore, the recovery of waste paper is the recovery of fiber, and the paper industry refers to this recycled fiber as "secondary fiber."

According to statistics, the average papermaking industry uses one ton of waste paper equivalent to saving 3 cubic meters of wood, 1.2 tons of coal, 600 degrees of electricity, and 100 cubic meters of water. Faced with such an astonishing figure, the United States, Germany, and other countries have forced papermaking companies to use a certain amount of waste paper materials in a legal form. Germany recovers 4 million tons annually, accounting for 83% of the total waste paper. Japan and Switzerland have the highest forest coverage in the world. However, more than half of the country's waste paper can be recycled. The annual waste paper recycling in the United States is as high as 42 million tons. Since 1992, recycled office paper has been used. According to Ms. Li Yuhua, deputy secretary-general of the Chinese Papermaking Society, the use of secondary fibers in the paper industry currently accounts for about 50% of the raw materials for the paper industry, which is a big gap compared with developed countries.

The paper industry's pollution is mainly caused by the structure of papermaking raw materials, and the problems are mainly concentrated in small and medium-sized enterprises, especially wheat straw pulp as raw materials, which is a major obstacle to the development of the paper industry. Due to the lack of abundant forest resources, non-wood fiber accounts for 48% of China's papermaking raw materials, most of which are wheat straw pulp. If waste paper is used, pollution problems can be greatly alleviated.

Every year, China's paper industry imports millions of tons of waste paper from abroad, and it is growing every year. In 2000, 3.71 million tons of waste paper was imported, an increase of 47.6% over the previous year, and the total cost was 245 million US dollars. Every year when such waste is used to import waste paper, there is a large amount of recycled waste paper that has not been used in China. Take newsprint alone as an example. There are hundreds of newspapers in Beijing. There are at least several tens of tons of tons released per day. Of these, 70%-80% of waste paper can be recycled, but the actual amount recycled is far from To meet this standard, a large amount of waste paper is wasted.

Who is hindering the promotion of recycled paper?

Paper mills are in desperate need of investment: Due to serious pollution, the country has recently shut down a group of small paper mills. The huge cost of pollution control has forced some paper mills to shut down themselves. If recycled paper is used as raw material for papermaking, the degree of contamination can be greatly reduced, and the cost of materials can be greatly reduced. Ms. Li Yuhua believes that if the conditions permit, these small factories can avoid the fate of closure, ease the situation that China's paper production can not meet the demand, a large number of imported foreign paper products. However, the problem is thus highlighted: after recycling of waste paper, it is also necessary to perform pulping, screening, purification, deinking, bleaching, and a series of process operations that require specialized equipment and potions, especially for some high-grade papers. Utilization requires more advanced equipment and medicine, and a set of imported deinking systems will cost several million dollars. This is undoubtedly a heavy burden for some small plants.

There is no uniform taxonomy: After the recycling of waste paper, there should be a classification problem, and then the paper mill will carry out different methods according to the length of the paper fiber. However, the current classification of waste paper in China is rather vague, and it is divided into simple categories. There are no specific classification standards in the industry. This greatly limits the reuse of waste paper. Foreign waste paper classification standards have been quite complete. According to Ms. Li Yuhua, the Printing Standards Committee is currently working on the preparation of waste paper sorting standards and related standards, including the classification standards for waste paper recycling, the standards for the determination of stickies in waste papers, and the measurement standards for residual pulp ink residues. The work will have a very important significance for the classification of waste paper in China and the classification of imported waste paper.

Lack of effective recycling channels: At present, China's waste paper recycling channels, to a large extent, also rely on waste recycling stations. Because they cannot take the initiative and facilitate the masses, even if they have the advantage of price, these traditional recycling outlets are also shrinking. Another crowd, the outsider of the rattle cart, is gradually becoming the main body, and the stability of this group is rather poor, so the recycling of waste paper is in an unstable situation. The channels for the recovery of waste paper have not yet been fully opened. In particular, the passages of large companies that produce professional waste paper have not been completely opened.

In the transport sector, waste paper recycling industry is facing another kind of embarrassment. The consumption of paper products in large cities is relatively large. These cities impose various restrictions on the types and weights of transport vehicles for major arterial roads. The paper mills are mainly located outside the city or in remote areas, so the recovered papers are faced with transportation. The problems that do not go out, these have fundamentally limited the amount of waste paper recycling. According to reports, many companies or individuals put forward the first condition for recycling manufacturers is "manufacturers responsible for door-to-door transport", however, Beijing big trucks in the city limit line. At present, the No. 7 Paper Mill can only rely on five small vans to rush around day and night, and many waste paper transports of various organizations and organizations must wait in line.

It will take time before the concept changes: As the woman mentioned at the beginning of this article is actually only a few, although the media has ignited the concept of recycling, the application of recycled paper is still far from its proper level. Beijing Paper No. 7 Plant is the only paper mill in Beijing that specializes in the production of recycled paper. Its daily output of recycled paper can reach more than ten tons. However, the daily sales of this plant are only several tens of tons. There is still a lot of work for the promotion of recycled paper. To do it. A key issue is that people's ideas have not changed. At present, the application of recycled paper in China is relatively narrow. Apart from postcards and business cards, the use of office recycled paper is even less. In foreign countries, office paper is the main application of recycled paper. Everyone refuses to accept recycled paper, nothing more than its own shortcomings: the lack of whiteness, the surface is not fine enough and so on. Experts emphasized that the whiteness of the paper accepted by the human eye is limited. If the whiteness of the paper is too high, it will cause some damage to the eye. In this sense, using recycled paper as office paper can even strengthen our vision care. According to the national regulations, for books such as textbooks, the brightness of the book paper should not exceed 70%. Therefore, many people do not need to be critical of the whiteness of recycled paper.

In the interview, we learned that at present, there are no special agencies in China to manage waste paper recycling and coordinate the use of recycled paper. Therefore, apart from investing funds, establishing standards, smooth channels, and changing concepts, we must first address management issues. Only Someone has managed to solve all kinds of problems that restrict the promotion of recycled paper.