Papermaking Is No Longer the ‘Major Polluter’: Inside the Industry’s Green Turnaround, From Stricter-Than-EU Standards to Forest-Pulp-Paper Integration

Bring up papermaking and plenty of people still picture foam spilling out, black effluent running off and forests stripped bare. For decades, “papermaking equals pollution” was the default assumption. Cling to it today, though, and you are plainly out of step with how far the industry has moved.

In recent years, as national requirements on environmental protection and on energy saving and emissions reduction have kept tightening, the pulp and paper industry has woven green development and circular-economy thinking into its operations. Backed by scientific and technological innovation and the adoption of advanced technologies and equipment, mills have pushed cleaner production forward, going after pollution at the source, throughout the production process and at the discharge end at the same time. Process and equipment levels have risen steadily and pollution control has advanced enormously — the “major polluter” tag was dropped long ago.

At present, some indicators of the environmental standards implemented by China’s paper industry are even stricter than those of European and American countries. Moreover, in recent years the technical and equipment levels of newly built and technologically upgraded pulp and paper enterprises have embodied high technological content; the cost, manufacturing difficulty and precision requirements of some large paper production lines are even higher than those of large passenger aircraft, and in particular their cleaner production and environmental treatment facilities have reached international advanced or even leading levels, promoting the coordinated development of the paper industry and ecological environmental protection.

From the perspective of raw materials, paper products commonly used in people’s daily lives, such as printing and writing paper, copy paper, facial tissues and toilet paper, are mostly made from wood pulp. China has implemented a policy of fully halting commercial logging of natural forests. The wood used for papermaking pulp mainly comes from fast-growing forests such as eucalyptus and poplar planted domestically, as well as commercial wood chips imported from abroad, or commercial wood pulp imported directly.

In recent years, many paper enterprises have been actively promoting the “forest-pulp-paper integration” industrial model. The so-called “forest-pulp-paper integration” means integrating the three links of afforestation, pulping and papermaking in the paper industry chain, so that forests support paper and paper promotes forests, achieving self-sufficiency in raw materials, full-process control and a green cycle of forests, and realizing sustainable development.

So the paper industry has not only avoided destroying primary forests, but has also, through tree planting and afforestation, effectively absorbed and fixed carbon dioxide, contributing to the country’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality.

Speaking of this, we cannot fail to mention the contribution of the industry leader! Let’s see how APP (China) does it!

Sinar Mas Group APP (China) was the earliest paper enterprise in China to launch the “forest-pulp-paper integration” industrial model. Over the years, APP (China) has actively explored resource conservation and recycling models, continuously strengthened cleaner production management, and always adhered to the raw material philosophy of “plant six trees for every tree used,” regarding afforestation as a core measure of the company’s production process. At present, the group has planted about 270,000 hectares of plantation forests in 8 provinces and cities across China. APP China’s cumulative forest carbon sequestration: 42,390,000 tonnes; APP China’s net increase in forest carbon sequestration in 2020: 4,623,900 tonnes.

At the same time, on the production side, APP is building intelligent industrial bases through technological upgrading and cleaner production, promoting a development model of high efficiency and low energy consumption. To accelerate the green transformation of manufacturing, factories under APP (China) vigorously promote cleaner production, establish and improve management systems for energy, water resources, waste gas emissions and other areas, and continuously reduce the environmental footprint of their own operations. In 2020, APP (China)’s Jindong Paper and Ningbo Asia Pulp & Paper were named among the “fifth batch of national-level green factories,” Guangxi Jingui Pulp & Paper’s ivory board won the title of fifth batch national-level green design product, and Guangxi Jingui was also rated as a green factory of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

APP (China) regards digital transformation as a key future development strategy and is advancing “Industry 4.0” construction and smart manufacturing across the board. By applying high-tech such as blockchain and big data, it has achieved full-life-cycle digital information collection from raw materials to finished products to recycling, greatly improving its product quality control capability and operational management efficiency.

In 2021, APP (China)’s high-grade household paper industrial base in Rudong, Jiangsu, is about to go into production. The base integrates technology manufacturing with the circular economy, adopts world-leading technology, and fully implements the principles of cleaner production, showcasing a new look of green development with high efficiency and low consumption in the paper industry.

Papermaking is one of the four great inventions of ancient China and a great contribution made by the Chinese nation to the history of human cultural dissemination and the development of civilization.

Today, leading enterprises such as APP (China) are helping China move from a “country with an ancient papermaking tradition” to a “strong papermaking nation” through concrete action!

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-377451.html