According to statistics, China imported 6,687,600 tons of waste paper in 2002. In the past six years, its average growth rate has reached about 40%.
At present, a considerable number of enterprises in China use imported waste paper as an important raw material. Most of the sandwich panels use waste paper. A considerable amount of cultural paper uses waste paper as raw material. The proportion of waste paper raw materials in China will increase in the next few years and it is expected to reach 46%-50% by 2010. In addition, due to further growth in demand, imported waste paper prices are expected to rise by more than 8%. As a result, the production costs of domestic papermaking companies will be subject to the constraints of the international market at any time.
Experts believe that the most fundamental solution is to increase the domestic wood pulp supply rate, companies should also consider wood pulp as the main raw material to produce high-end products, rather than using waste paper to produce middle and low-end products. At the same time, relevant regulations and waste paper classification standards should be formulated to increase the recycling and utilization of domestic waste paper.