Waste Paper Recycling Makes "Circular Economy" Grow

When it comes to "circular economy", it is impossible to say no papermaking. Papermaking consumes forest trees and discharges sewage. If the scale cannot be well controlled and pollution is contaminated, it is difficult for the forests to maintain their natural replacement, and water resources cannot self-purify. Then, for the future, the paper industry is a sword of Damocles. . The use of waste paper as a raw material for the production of new paper can greatly reduce the consumption of wood pulp and the discharge of pollutants. It can also save 400 kg of coal, 400 kWh of electricity and 300 tons of water per metric ton of paper. It is a sustainable development measure that some countries use laws to implement.

At present, China is already the world's second largest consumer of paper and paper products, the largest net importer of international paper trade, and the paper consumption is still growing rapidly. Therefore, the construction of papermaking into a recycling industry has significant implications for the sustainable development of China and the safe operation of the national economy.

However, the current situation is somewhat worrying. In China's papermaking raw materials, although waste paper accounts for a large proportion, waste paper mainly depends on imports. While spending a large amount of foreign exchange to buy waste paper from other countries, such as “America Waste”, China’s own 14 million tons of waste paper produced each year, the recycling rate is very low. A comparison can tell the difference. The recovery rate of waste paper in Japan is above 78%; Germany recycles 4 million tons of waste paper each year, accounting for 83% of the total waste paper volume; the recycling rate of old newspapers and magazines in Finnish cities is almost 100%; and waste paper recycling in China. The rate is only 30%.

Why China's waste paper recycling rate is low? The boss of a paper company once told the author: This company has tracked people who have collected waste paper, and found that most of them would send waste paper to a certain place and spray it with water... In Beijing In some areas of the suburbs, sand and water sprayed waste paper even developed into an underground industry. To use such waste paper, paper mills must first dry the collected waste paper and shake off the sand. Instead of importing it directly from abroad.

From this situation, we can see that: Our legal norms and policy support for waste paper recycling are not specific enough and not enough. In countries where waste paper recycling is relatively mature, most of them have a complete collection of legal systems that consider various aspects of their interests, are highly operational, and have strict quantitative quantification. For paper-making enterprises, it is mandatory that a certain amount of waste paper be used as raw material for production; for recycling enterprises, the government must be given a certain amount of subsidies to ensure that they can operate in a reasonable way to obtain a reasonable economic benefit; for consumers, the administrative law enforcement department will conduct random checks at any time. , Fines shall be imposed on those waste papers that are not classified and sent to the designated collection office. In comparison, China's recycling of resources is not lacking in importance, lack of propaganda and education, but it lacks effective measures and systems. Imagine that there are people who do illegal money by scraping water from waste paper, and if there are appropriate policy subsidies, people will scramble to do a good job if they carefully recycle and sort out waste paper.

When people talk about environmental protection and recycling of resources, they always like to stress the gap between the concept of Chinese and foreign nationals. Actually, laws and regulations, rules and habits, and habits of nature and naturalization are the processes. To the recycling of a specific link with a reasonable standard, including the use of waste paper, including the "circular economy" can really grow up.