Wood is the most important raw material for the paper industry. The production of 1 ton of paper requires the cutting down of about 20 trees of 20 to 40 years old, and about 25% of the world's commodity wood is used for papermaking. As fewer and fewer forest resources are in the world, all countries in the world are now paying attention to the recycling of waste paper. Waste paper discarded in waste piles and waste wood have become cheap papermaking raw materials. Scientists call it “fourth. Forest."
According to estimates by experts, 1 ton of office waste paper can produce 0.8 tons of recycled paper, equivalent to saving 4 cubic meters of wood or saving 17 trees. If we recycle half of all paper in the world, we will be able to meet 75% of the new paper demand, which is equivalent to 8 million hectares of forest from being cut down.
Scientists at the International Forest Research Center pointed out that in the past 10 years, the disappearance of rainforests has increased tenfold. The paper industry consumes 60 million cubic meters of wood each year, which is three times the sustainable development capacity of forest trees. At present, 90% of the raw materials used in the paper industry come from natural forests. Paper Miller Asia Paper Co., Ltd. has cut 1 million hectares of tropical rain forest over the past 10 years. Although they stated that they would implement plans for all papermaking raw materials from artificial secondary forests in 2007, people still expressed doubts because of the huge investment needed.
According to statistics, China has become a major country in paper production, consumption and import. Last year, both paper and board production and consumption ranked second in the world, second only to the United States. However, our country is a Shaolin country and the forest coverage rate is 10 percentage points lower than the world average. Forest cover is only 16.55%, far below the world average of 27%. Since the implementation of the natural forest protection project in 1998, the amount of domestic timber harvested has been limited, and domestic forest has declined by 1.1% annually. It is predicted that in 2005 China's commodity wood demand gap will reach 70 million cubic meters.
Experts pointed out that the recycling of waste paper can not only protect natural resources and reduce environmental pollution, but also save 23 cubic meters of timber and 400 kg of coal, 400 kWh of electricity, and 300 tons of water per ton of paper. Therefore, even countries rich in forest resources attach great importance to waste paper recycling. Japan's waste paper recycling rate is above 78%; Germany is 83%; the United States recycles more than 100 million tons of waste paper each year, which is equivalent to the amount of paper used in China in one year; Finland is one of the world's major producers of paper, and its paper production in 2001. It is 12.5 million tons, of which domestic consumption is 1 million tons. According to figures released by the Finnish Waste Paper Recycling Company, the Finnish national waste paper recycling rate reached 74%, and per capita waste paper recycling amount was 143 kg.
After decades of efforts, China’s waste paper recycling has achieved great development. However, compared with Japan and the United States, there are still large gaps. At present, the waste paper recycling rate in China's Guangdong Province is about 40%, which is already high in China. Therefore, experts suggest that China's relevant departments should formulate a set of laws and regulations for waste paper recycling that conform to China's national conditions and conform to international standards as soon as possible, and strengthen the formulation, management, use, and classification standards of domestic waste paper as soon as possible. This will not only ease the conflict between the major paper-making countries and the scarcity of forest resources, but also save the country a lot of foreign exchange and reduce the company's production costs. According to calculations, each ton of paper recovered by a paper mill is equivalent to saving 3 cubic meters of wood, saving 100 cubic meters of water, saving 1.2 tons of coal, saving 600 degrees, and saving 300 kilograms of chemical raw materials. If a factory produces 20,000 tons of recycled paper annually, it can save 58,000 cubic meters of wood annually, which is equivalent to cutting down 520,000 trees, and can save a lot of energy, water and environmental management costs.
