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| Analysis on China's Paper Manufacturing Industry |
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Contrast to China's booming economy, its paper manufacturing industry has been notably sluggish. Commentators pointed out that the severe environmental damage caused by traditional paper making techniques is the primary reason for the industry's struggling.
Take the example of water pollution. In 2004, wastewater discharge from paper making industry accounted for 14.4% of total wastewater discharge in China. And in terms of the more important COD (chemical oxygen demand) emission, the paper industry was responsible for 33% of China's industrial COD emission volume. Such an industry, which contributes only 2.2% to China's economy but pollutes the country with 14.4% wastewater discharge and 33% COD emission, is obviously not a good business.
Straw pulp pollution: a legacy problem
A few decades ago, even wood had been widely used internationally for paper making, wheat straw was still chosen as the main raw material for paper making in China, due to cost saving, abundance in wheat straws and forest protection reasons. But in the following decades, problems with straw pulp-based paper have gradually manifested.
Small paper manufacturers, whose annual output is normally below 10,000 tonnes, have been notorious for their environmental damages in China. These small players were booming in the 1990s, with almost 10,000 companies nationally at its peak, and even today there are still more than 2,500 in China. Small paper manufacturers are characterised by their simple techniques, outdated equipment and lack of wastewater treatment facilities. They often directly discharge highly chemically polluted water into local rivers and lakes, hence a major polluter. It is reported that COD contents in wastewater discharged by small and medium paper manufacturers are 3 times more than national standards.
Why straw pulp mills cannot achieve bigger scales in China? There are two reasons. One is because most wheat straw harvests are seasonal, straw pulp mills have to complete their annual raw material procurement in a relatively short timeframe. Large amount of straw stacks not only requires considerable land, but would also be gradually destroyed by sunlight and rain throughout the year. The second reason relates to the high transportation costs compared to wheat straw's low value, therefore most straw pulp mills can only source raw materials from local suppliers. As a result, straw pulp mills' technical and equipment levels are decades behind wood pulp mills in the country. Currently most straw pulp mills in China can only produce 10,000 to 30,000 tons per year, with the largest mill only producing 100,000 tons a year. |
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Straw pulp black liquor discharged from straw pulp paper making process is the biggest pollutant. Black liquor has significant silicon, high viscosity and poor water filterability, and its recovery percentage is only 80-95%, compared to 95% or more for wood pulp. In terms of soda recovery, straw pulp is only 65-75%, compared to wood pulp's 98%. Straw pulp also consumes large amount of water. Overall, pollutants in straw pulp wastewater are typically 6-7 times higher than in wood pulp wastewater.
Wood-based paper: lack of resources
Can the Chinese paper industry change from relying on straw pulp to wood paper making? Obviously, such a change would have to destroy much more forestry resources. Cutting lots of trees, for the sake of making paper, would also cause damage to the environment.
Due to it fast economic growth, China has to import lots of timber each year. Currently China is already highly reliant on wood timber and saw timer imports, which equals to 50% of China's domestic timber output. In addition, China imported 20 million tonnes of scrap paper in 2007, equivalent to one third of the global scrap paper supply.
Can imports solve the difficulties in China's paper industry? One has to know that rising energy prices are seriously impacting transportation costs. More importantly, as one of the strategic resources, China cannot overly rely on timber imports, otherwise its economic stability will become highly dependent on international market forces.
Straw pulp pollutes the environment, and there is a lack of forests. Thus China's paper industry is now facing a development dilemma.
Globally, 93% of the paper are currently made from wood. And the paper industry is now the biggest consumer of global timer resources, using 27% of total industrial timbers. Global paper industry's annual timber consumption of 700-800 million cubic metres are delivered by cutting tens of millions of hectares of forests worldwide. But the experience from paper industries in developed countries has indicated that paper manufacturing itself did not damage the environment, instead it could promote the development of forestry industry. The paper industry considers forestry plantation as an important survival condition, and this point can be seen in paper industries in Europe and North America. Timber and paper integration
To solve the shortage of timber resources, China has to vigorously develop forestry plantation. In its "11th Five-year Plan", the National Development and Reform Commission explicitly stressed the policy of "timber-pulp-paper integration". It encouraged domestic paper manufacturers to plant high-output forests, in order to achieve supply self-sufficiency.
At present, there are about 30 wood-based pulp and paper companies planting their own timber supply bases, which are far from sufficient in terms of both supply volume and product mix. Although China has a large amount of forests, but they are characterized by low coverage percentage, low volume per capita, unbalanced geographic distribution, suboptimal tree age mix and insufficient extractable resources. The supply and demand imbalance can only be worse in the near future, so it is imperative for China to accelerate construction of plantation bases.
But industry insiders believe that the process of replacing straw pulp with wood pulp will take quite some time, so in the near future, China's paper industry still has to rely on straw pulp materials. Therefore, the government should increase investments in developing straw fibre pulp cleaning technologies, in order to improve the paper industry's pollution treating ability.
In fact, the only three paper manufacturers that were included in Top 500 Chinese Companies in 2007, namely Chenming Paper, APP Group and Huatai Group, are well ahead of their industry peers in terms of environmental protection and forestry plantation. The top three collectively share 40% of China's paper output, but only produce less than 10% of COD. APP Group has also planted almost 4 million acres of forests in southern China since 2005.
Although compared to the huge demand for paper-making raw materials in China, the above plantation volume is mere a drop in the bucket, but these industry leaders are constantly looking to solve the environmental constraint, in order to lead the Chinese paper industry onto a sustainable path.
Source: www.chinairn.com
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