Waste paper: an indispensable raw material for Chinese paper industry!

Since 2017, the state has tightened the import policy of foreign waste, and the foreign waste quota of paper enterprises has become less and less. In 2021, China will completely ban the import of foreign waste. Over the past four years, what has changed in the paper industry? Are these changes creeping into other industries or end consumers? At present, the industry is facing raw material problems, how should we break the situation? With these problems, the author deeply thought about the impact of waste paper on the upstream and downstream industry chain.

The role of paper for humans

On February 22, 2019, the "White Paper on the Sustainable Development of China's Paper Industry" jointly organized by the China Paper Association and the China Paper Society pointed out that in 2017, the total assets of China's paper industry (collectively referred to as paper and paper products industry) reached 1.46 trillion yuan, the main business income reached 1.48 trillion yuan, and the profit was 101.6 billion yuan; Paper consumption totaled 108.79 million tons, accounting for about a quarter of the world's total.

The white paper is based on facts and objectively reflects the development status of China's paper industry and the progress made in sustainable development in recent years. The white paper shows that the paper industry is an important basic raw material industry closely related to the national economy and social development, has the characteristics of sustainable development, and plays an important role in various fields of the national economy. Paper products are widely used in various fields such as cultural communication, packaging, decoration, industrial and agricultural production, national defense construction and people's life.

Types of papermaking raw materials

At present, the raw materials used in the paper industry are mainly wood pulp, non-wood pulp (such as wheat straw pulp, bamboo pulp, reed pulp, bagasse pulp, etc.) and waste pulp three categories.

Waste paper - one of the important raw materials of paper industry

In countries rich in forest resources such as the United States, Canada and Finland, wood pulp accounts for 90% of papermaking raw materials.

In China, due to the lack of forest resources, adult wood is mainly used for the production of furniture, and less mature wood can be used for papermaking. The proportion of wood pulp in the total raw material of pulp and paper is not high.

In 2018, wood pulp accounted for 30% of papermaking raw materials in China. Waste pulp (pulp produced using waste paper as raw material) accounted for 58%, non-wood pulp accounted for 7%, and the proportion of wood pulp and non-wood pulp increased in 2019 and 2020 as the amount of imported waste paper decreased sharply.

National waste is difficult to meet the demand for raw materials in China's paper industry

From 2017 to 2019, the recycling volume of national waste was 52.85 million tons, 49.64 million tons and 52.44 million tons, respectively. According to the statistics of the China Paper Association, the recycling rate of waste paper in China increased from 44.6% in 2011 to 49% in 2019. China's waste paper raw materials are recycled at least twice, and the overall quality of pulp is not high.

Types, qualities and advantages of external wastes

Because of the forest resources in Europe and the United States, the foreign waste (American waste) fiber is only treated once, not only the fiber performance is better, the proportion of long fiber is higher, and the pulping yield is also higher than the national waste. At the same time, the recycling system of foreign waste paper is relatively mature, and the price is relatively cheap. In the past two years, most domestic papermaking enterprises favored to obtain more imported waste paper quotas to improve the quality of paper products.

China's use of imported waste as papermaking raw materials has reduced domestic deforestation, saved a lot of forest resources, and reduced carbon emissions in the wood pulping process.

The amount of foreign waste imported by China

For many years, China has been the largest importer of waste paper, and China's imports of waste paper account for about 1/3 of the world's available exports. Among them, 50% of US waste is exported to China.

In 2016 and before, about 40% of the domestic demand for waste paper was met by imported waste paper. In 2017, China introduced a waste restriction policy, which officially opened the prelude to restricting the import of waste paper; From 2017 to 2019, the import volume of foreign waste in China has continued to decline, and the import of waste paper has been completely banned in 2021.

Paper and paperboard production in China in recent years

Since 2009, China's paper production and consumption has been ranked first in the world. Since the beginning of the 21st century, China has become a major producer, consumer and importer of paper industry in the world, and occupies an important position in the global market.

As can be seen from the figure above, in the past 10 years, China's paper and paperboard production as a whole has risen steadily, which exceeded 110 million tons in 2017, hitting a record high, and from 2018 to 2020, it has been affected by various factors, and there has been a slight downward trend.

The domino effect of raw material shortages

After China's complete ban on the import of foreign waste in 2021, the raw materials of China's paper industry were once scarce, and the cost of paper mills increased, which was directly reflected in the price of paper - the price of packaging paper soared, and the frequent fluctuations of paper prices had an impact on the paper industry and downstream printing and packaging industry.

For a long period of time from now on, China's papermaking enterprises have to face the problem of raw materials and use various "tricks" to solve the urgent needs to ensure the sustainable and benign development of the industry.