From January 1 next year, my country will ban the import of solid waste in any way.
Waste paper is a major category of imported solid waste. Due to its price advantage, imported waste paper has always been favored by the domestic paper industry.
As the time for a complete ban on the import of solid waste is approaching, what are the new changes in the domestic waste paper market in terms of supply and price?
1 Paper mills continuously issued price adjustment letters and recycling stations are busy with recycling
At seven o'clock in the evening, a waste paper recycling station in the Xihu District of Hangzhou, Zhejiang ushered in the busiest time of the day. People who weighed, unloaded, and collected money lined up to sell waste paper.
Mr. Zhang, a recycler who has just sold out waste paper, told reporters that the price of waste paper recycling has risen again in recent days. The 500-plus catties of waste paper he sold today has sold nearly 20 yuan more than the previous two days.
According to the owner of this waste paper recycling station, he has recently received price adjustment letters for the increase in the price of waste paper from paper mills almost every day, and their recycling prices have also increased. At present, the price of the yellow cardboard paper they recycle is 1 kg per catty. The price of TCM paper is about 9 cents per catty, which is about one cent per catty higher than a month ago.
His waste paper recycling station can now collect 25-6 tons of waste paper every day, an increase of 3 to 5 tons compared to the same period in previous years.
Shu Qunke, the person in charge of a waste paper recycling station in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province: Sometimes the price will increase by two a day, basically between 30 yuan and 50 yuan per ton. Every family is reluctant to throw it away, and basically we buy it. Here comes the station.
For such price fluctuations, Shu Qunke said that he has long been accustomed, because in recent years, domestic waste paper prices have been volatile.
It is understood that the amount of domestic waste paper imported in 2016 was about 28 million tons, accounting for more than 35% of domestic waste paper consumption.
Beginning in 2017, the domestic management of solid waste imports has become more and more stringent. The volume of imported waste paper has been decreasing year by year. By 2019, the volume of imported waste paper has reduced to more than 10 million tons. From January to October 2020, the volume of imported waste paper is only More than 5 million tons.
As an effective supplement to the raw materials of domestic paper mills, the reduction of imported waste paper has directly brought about a sharp increase in the price of domestic waste paper. Taking the first-level waste cardboard paper as an example, the domestic waste paper price has basically stabilized at 1,200 yuan for a long time before 2017 Per ton, and volatility began to rise in 2017, and the current price is basically maintained at a level above 2,000 yuan per ton.
Tang Yanju, Secretary-General of the Waste Paper Branch of China Renewable Resources Recycling Association: From September this year to now, there has been a slight upward trend, from about 2,000 yuan/ton to 2,300 yuan/ton. Because the import of waste will be banned on January 1 next year. Many paper mills will adjust the time and amount of raw material inventory increase, so there will be a slight increase in the near future.
2 Domestic waste paper is becoming a hot commodity, and paper mills are deploying front-end recycling links
The successive changes in the price of waste paper have also made domestic waste paper raw materials a popular item among various manufacturers.
As a result, some large domestic paper mills have also deployed front-end recycling links to compete for resources and stabilize the supply of raw materials.
Fu Jie, the person in charge of a waste paper recycling company in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, has recently received calls from many paper mills every day to buy his waste paper.
Although the paper mills are requesting a lot of goods recently, he does not plan to ship them in large quantities. At present, their company’s more than 20 waste paper packing stations can collect nearly 2,000 tons of waste paper every day, and the daily shipment volume is Just over a thousand tons.
Because he is optimistic about the market outlook, he wants to store some waste paper first.
In fact, due to the tightening of imported waste paper policies in the past two years, the amount of domestic waste paper recycling has also risen sharply. In 2016, it was about 51 million tons. In 2019, this figure has risen to 62.5 million tons.
At the same time, some large paper mills have changed the purchasing strategy of collecting waste paper raw materials at home. On the one hand, they have established their own waste paper recycling stations, and on the other hand, they have established cooperation with larger regional waste paper recycling companies. The transfer warehouse moves forward the procurement process and locks in the purchase quantity and quality of waste paper in advance.
Tang Yanju, Secretary-General of the Waste Paper Branch of China Renewable Resources Recycling Association: Encourage leading waste paper recycling companies in the region to give full play to their scale advantages. The main body of recycling will become more and more concentrated to stabilize the current end-of-production companies’ raw materials and market prices. The quality and recycling volume of domestic waste paper will also be greatly improved.
3 Paper companies set up factories overseas to fill the gap, and imported recycled pulp soared
In addition to increasing the layout of waste paper raw materials in the recycling process, some domestic paper companies are also setting up factories overseas to make up for the gap in waste paper raw materials by processing waste paper into semi-finished pulp and then importing it into China.
According to the person in charge of the raw material warehouse of a large paper-making company in Zhejiang, they currently have more than 30,000 tons of imported waste paper raw materials. This is also the last batch of waste paper imported by this company. Starting from January 1 next year, this type of waste paper Paper will not be allowed to be imported into the country.
Li Yunpeng, deputy general manager of a papermaking enterprise in Zhejiang Province: Imported waste paper now accounts for less than 20%, and the proportion of domestic waste paper has increased from more than 10% to more than 80%.
In the warehouse of this company, in addition to imported waste paper and domestic waste paper raw materials, you can also see a kind of gray cardboard. The person in charge introduced to the reporter that this is imported recycled pulp, that is, imported waste paper is used in overseas factories. It is processed into semi-finished pulp and then imported into China.
It is understood that this year this company has built a plant for producing recycled pulp in Southeast Asia, and it has been put into production. The designed production capacity is 700,000 tons, but the actual output is about 300,000 tons.
Li Yunpeng, deputy general manager of a papermaking enterprise in Zhejiang Province: Because imported waste paper contains relatively high virgin wood pulp content and relatively long fibers, it is a necessary raw material for the production of high-grade paper. We are now basically using this imported recycled pulp instead Part.
It is understood that the domestic imports of recycled pulp in 2019 will be about 920,000 tons, and so far this year has been close to 1.6 million tons.
Industry insiders pointed out that although importing recycled pulp can make up for a part of the gap in imported waste paper raw materials, it also increases the production costs of paper manufacturers to a certain extent. In addition, due to the limited production capacity of foreign recycled pulp, there is currently no domestic recycling Relevant standards for the import of pulp, the import of recycled pulp still has certain limitations.