Asia Symbol: 100 Refining Steel Becomes a "National Green Factory"
The pulp and paper industry is an indispensable basic industry related to the national economy and people's livelihood. China's consumption of pulp and paper has long ranked first in the world, and environmental protection is also one of the social concerns. The level of environmental governance of pulp and paper enterprises often determines how far the enterprise can go.
In Rizhao City, Asia Symbol (Shandong) Pulp & Paper Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Asia Symbol) has invested a total of 7 billion yuan in environmental protection for more than 20 years, introducing world-class environmental protection technology, technology, equipment and management, and control systems, leading the industry to reduce carbon emissions and achieve high-quality and sustainable development. At present, both the total investment in environmental protection and the proportion of total investment are the largest among pulp and paper mills of the same scale in the world, and the environmental performance is leading in the industry, and it has been rated as a "national green factory".
Create multiple firsts, waste into treasure
Over the years, in order to maximize resource utilization and reduce pollutant emissions, Asia Symbol has created a number of "firsts", turning production wastes such as black liquor, solid waste, and waste gas into treasures in the pulp and paper making process.
Take black liquor, for example. In the company's pulping line, the black liquor produced during the pulping process is continuously transported to the evaporation section at a flow rate of 550 l/s. The dilute black liquor evaporates and concentrates to about 80% concentration, and then supplies the alkali furnace for combustion.
"The burning of black liquor in the alkali furnace not only avoids the environmental pollution caused by the discharge of black liquor, but also can turn black liquor into treasure, provide electricity and heat energy for the factory, and realize resource recycling." According to the factory staff, the maximum daily combustion capacity of PL12 alkali boiler can reach 7,500 tons, and 22,000 tons of high-pressure steam can be produced every day, and the high-pressure steam is delivered to the steam turbine generator, and finally converted into medium and low-pressure steam and electric energy required by the factory, which can produce 4,000 tons of medium-pressure steam and 18,000 tons of low-pressure steam per day, and 3,100 megawatt-hours of electricity at the same time.
For example, in order to ensure the stable combustion of the odor system in emergency situations such as power failure in the whole plant, the company invested 60 million yuan to build an odor treatment system, which seamlessly connected to dual power supply, dual gas source, dual water source and other transformation projects, which further improved the safety and reliability of the odor system operation. The project is the first of its kind to be launched by a global pulp and paper company.
Asia Symbol is also the first company in the pulp and paper industry to reuse urban grey water. The company invested nearly 70 million yuan to receive the effluent wastewater from some domestic sewage treatment plants in Rizhao City for retreatment, treating 40,000 tons of reclaimed water per day, which can save nearly 10 million cubic meters of water resources every year. The treated "new water" is used for boiler make-up water and cooling tower make-up water. The project reduces chemical oxygen demand (COD) by 370 tons and ammonia nitrogen by 40 tons per year.
"We regard environmental protection as the life of the enterprise and adhere to the concept of 'either the enterprise eliminates pollution, or the pollution eliminates the enterprise'." The company's management said that "meeting the standard" is the most basic requirement, and world-class is the goal of the company.
Flue gas waste heat reuse is one such transformation. The flue gas waste heat reuse project with an investment of nearly 400 million yuan can not only save a lot of coal, reduce the amount of flue gas water, reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but also collect waste heat to provide 6 million square meters of winter heating for community residents. This is the first integrated project of flue gas waste heat reuse in China's paper industry, which has played a leading and exemplary role in energy conservation and emission reduction in the national and global paper industry.
The first woodchip yard in the national paper industry was covered with dust nets, and the first sewage treatment plant in the national paper industry was covered with ...... Asia Symbol, which is almost "nitpicking" in environmental protection, currently uses biomass waste to generate about 1.5 billion kWh of electricity every year, achieving basic energy self-sufficiency, while reducing carbon emissions by more than 3 million tons per year and saving 1.2 million tons of standard coal.
Sustainable development and green and low-carbon products
In 2023, Asia Symbol signed sustainability-linked syndicated loans totaling RMB1 billion with various banking institutions. According to the agreement, the loan interest is linked to the company's air pollutant emissions, water consumption, water reuse rate and other indicators, and a third-party certification body will issue a certification report and verify the annual assessment results. The company also participated in the drafting of the Sino-European content consistency group standards "General Principles for Environmental Footprint Assessment of Paper and Paper Products" and "Detailed Rules for Environmental Footprint Assessment of Pulp and Paper Products". This standard is the first environmental footprint accounting standard for China's pulp and paper industry, and it is also the first standard in China to reach content consistency and mutual recognition agreement with EU industry organizations.
In terms of green product research and development, Asia Symbol also spares no effort.
Asia Symbol's products "BoardOne" brand coated white cardboard and "BoardOne" brand white cardboard for cigarette packs have entered the public list of "Green Design Products" of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
In line with the trend of lightweight and low cost in the market, the high-bulk roof-type liquid packaging board developed can reduce the weight of paper and the consumption of pulp and chemicals by about 10% for customers while meeting the same paper-forming performance and customer needs.
Research and development of lightweight cow bottom liquid packaging paperboard, with a lower weight to achieve the required thickness and stiffness and meet the performance of box packaging, can reduce the weight of paper and pulp and chemical consumption for customers by 2%-5% under the same paper area, the comprehensive technical level is at the leading level in China.
It is the first in the industry to launch a series of carbon-neutral products such as "Piovan copy paper", "Bowang" white cardboard and Piovan and "Yawen" offset paper, and actively cooperates with publishing houses to promote green reading, and cooperates with world-renowned pharmaceutical companies to create carbon-neutral packaging products.
Asia Symbol's "Copy Coke" and "All Access" eye care paper series have been awarded the "Children and Adolescents Studies" by the China Quality Certification Center (CQC).practiceHygiene Requirements Certification for Myopia Prevention and Control", the raw materials of eye care products come from renewable plantations, the ingredients are environmentally friendly, and no fluorescent brighteners are added.
To build a green pulp and paper industry chain, research and development of low whiteness pulp, the launch of the "Greenwang" product is the industry's first natural color copy paper products, the product does not add fluorescent brighteners, can slow down the fatigue caused by long-term reading, care for readers' eyesight.
The green and low-carbon transformation has put enterprises on the fast track of high-quality development. As a vertically integrated pulp, paper and fiber enterprise under RGE, Asia Symbol has become the largest foreign-funded enterprise and overseas Chinese enterprise in Shandong Province and one of the top 100 foreign trade enterprises in Shandong Province for many years.
