Using Waste Paper Recycling to Protect Forest Resources

What is the average daily amount of waste paper in the world? There is no statistics, but it is a lot. As we all know, the main raw material for papermaking is wood. 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.

Scientists at the International Forest Research Center pointed out that in the past 10 years, the speed of the disappearance of tropical rain forests has increased by 10 times. 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.

Due to the fact that there are fewer and fewer forest resources in the world, all countries in the world now attach great importance to the recycling of waste paper. Waste paper discarded in waste piles and waste wood have become cheap papermaking raw materials. According to estimates by experts, 1 ton of office waste paper can produce 0.8 tons of recycled paper. Scientists call it the "fourth forest."

Recycling 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 recovery rate is above 78%; Germany is 83%; the United States is over 100 million tons; Finland is one of the world's major paper producing countries. Finland's national waste paper recycling rate reaches 74%, and per capita waste paper recovery volume is 143 kg.

The data shows that China has become a big country for 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.

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.

From this point of view, we really should make a good effort on waste paper recycling.