Current situation of the hottest pulp mold industr

The current situation of China's pulp mold industry

the prohibition of the use of disposable plastic foam tableware in order No. 6 of the State Economic and Trade Commission in 1999 was at the end of 2000. Now the countdown has passed, and the best time to implement the ban has come. It is a fundamental measure to control white pollution from the source to implement administrative measures such as suspension of business licenses, suspension of loans, and shutdown and transfer of foaming plastic tableware manufacturing enterprises. However, the substitute industry ensures the safe and rapid entry of substitutes into the market, which is also the basic guarantee for the implementation of the ban on disposable foamed plastic tableware

after a thorough investigation of nearly 200 enterprises, the pulp molding machinery and products branch of China food and packaging machinery industry association has mastered the first-hand information. We believe that China's pulp molding industry, after the prohibition of disposable plastic foaming tableware, has the ability to be the leading substitute for disposable foaming plastic tableware on the basis of ensuring that the product performance fully reaches the quality level of the national standard, It can basically meet the needs of the domestic market. At the same time, it can completely solve the constraints of excessive dissolved substances and high product costs of pulp mold tableware, improve the competitiveness of the industry, and make the pulp mold industry a new force in the rapidly rising Chinese environmental protection industry

I. overview of the production capacity of the pulp mold industry

China's pulp mold industry started in the 1980s and began to develop paper tableware in the mid-1990s. So far, it has developed into an independent industry with a complete range of paper mold tableware products, packaging products production, equipment manufacturing, spare parts supply, raw materials, additives production and supply, with hundreds of enterprises participating and hundreds of thousands of people employed. In 1998, the National Environmental Protection Bureau organized experts to evaluate four types of substitutes for foamed plastic tableware: pulp mold tableware, plant fiber tableware, starch blending tableware and photodegradable plastic tableware, and comprehensively analyzed the raw material performance, production process, production cost, product use performance, environmental impact of production process, recycling performance, degradation degree, market acceptance degree and other multiple factors of the four types of products, Pulp mold tableware is listed as the preferred product by the National Environmental Protection Bureau with the highest score in the comprehensive evaluation

according to the survey, the annual use of all kinds of disposable plastic foaming tableware in China is about 10billion, and the pulp mold industry can fully meet 80% of its demand within a year, completing the main channel supply task. This, together with other three kinds of substitutes such as plant fibers, can completely ensure that the market demand can be met immediately after the prohibition of foaming plastic tableware

1. Have the ability to meet market demand

the existing production capacity of tableware in the pulp mold industry is about 4billion per year, accounting for 40% of the total demand. Due to the current weak implementation of the ban on foamed plastic tableware, foamed plastic tableware still accounts for about 90% of the market share, so the pulp mold industry is generally underemployed. For example, northeast Jifu paper molding products company and Xinjiang beikele paper products company, which are the largest in the industry and have an annual production of more than 100 million, have an actual production of only about 20% of the production capacity. At present, there are no more than 1billion products entering the market in the whole industry. The production capacity of 4billion tableware has been formed, with a total investment of about 660million yuan. These capital have not yet achieved value-added, affecting the enthusiasm of some enterprises and the whole industry. Once the ban takes effect, this part of production capacity will be quickly restored within three months, and the multi-functional proportional valve group will be started to meet the leading market demand

2. There are conditions for rapidly increasing production capacity

at present, there are more than 70 manufacturing equipment enterprises in the pulp mold industry, and the annual design production capacity can reach more than 700 automatic and semi-automatic production lines. It can produce 14billion disposable paper tableware of various specifications. Quanzhou Far East Environmental Protection Equipment Co., Ltd. can complete 30 production lines every year, with an additional production capacity of 1.2 billion

3. Have the foundation of funds needed to expand the production scale

the environmental protection industry will be a new industry rising rapidly in the new century. With the introduction of international environmental protection legislation, pulp moulded tableware produced with herbal pulp as the main raw material, as the best substitute for plastic foamed tableware with white pollution, will become one of the most promising industries not only in China, but also in the international market. Investors are very enthusiastic about this project. In recent years, dozens of foreign investors from the United States, Japan, Australia, South Korea and other countries have come to the industry association to discuss joint ventures. At present, there are 16 joint ventures. Many listed companies in China are also optimistic about this environmental protection project. At present, there are five enterprises with shares of listed companies. According to incomplete statistics, in 2000 alone, various investment agreements reached by enterprises across the industry totaled 879 million yuan. "Everything is ready, only due to the east wind". As long as the ban is truly implemented, pulp mold tableware can occupy a certain market share, the fund will naturally tilt towards this project

II. Summary of market competitiveness of pulp mold industry

under the conditions of market economy, government behavior can not replace market behavior, and it is completely dependent on the ban of the government. If the cost of the substitute industry remains high and the performance cannot fully meet the market demand, it is still impossible to occupy the market steadily. Therefore, the pulp mold industry focused on (2) LCD Chinese character display and organized technical research, and finally solved some prominent problems that have been bothering the industry, and enhanced the market competitiveness of the industry itself

1. The cost has been reduced by about 20%

as the pulp mold industry is a newly emerging sunrise industry, the process is not perfect. In addition, the cost of pulp and fuel has been rising, and some additives are mainly imported from abroad. The price is high, so the cost has been high, which has greatly hindered the entry of products into the market. In order to reduce costs, we focus on pulp, additives and energy, which account for 75% of the total cost. After nearly three years of efforts, the product cost (calculated by standard lunch boxes) has been reduced from more than 0.30 ~ 0.35 yuan per box to about 0.26 yuan. At the same time, there is room to reduce the cost of pulp mold tableware in the near future, about 15% - 20%. Among them, the raw material that originally accounted for about 35% of the cost was pulp board. By adding additives that can degrade and increase the rigidity, air permeability and other functions of the product, the cost can be reduced by about 25%; In the past, oil repellents were mainly imported. Now some domestic scientific research and production units have developed substitutes. At the same time, some enterprises have reduced the amount of use by changing internal sizing to external sizing, which can reduce the cost by about 30%. As for energy consumption, many enterprises have changed from simple electric heating to low-cost steam, fuel oil, natural gas heating and other methods, which can reduce the cost by 30%. These achievements are planned to be promoted by the industry association at this year's annual meeting. After realization, the cost of each meal box can be finally controlled at about 0.20 yuan, which is close to the price of foamed plastic tableware, and can greatly improve the market competitiveness of pulp mold products

2. The problem of excessive dissolved matter was solved

the reason why the pulp molded tableware exceeds the standard is that the pulp molded tableware is mainly made of herbaceous plant pulp. The hemicellulose content in herbaceous plant pulp is high, and the main component of these hemicellulose is composed of five carbon sugar. Therefore, sugar constitutes the majority of the dissolved matter, and it is well known that sugar is not harmful at all. The similarities between the FDA standard of the United States and the national standard of our country are that the indexes of dissolved substances are set at 38.76 and 30 respectively, which indeed ensures the absolute safety index of dissolved substances. However, the difference is that the inspection method of FDA is to filter the evaporated residue with chloroform, melt and filter the sugar in the evaporated residue safely, and then extract the remaining residue for measurement, so that the residue will no longer contain sugar components. There is no doubt that this kind of detection is convenient and more scientific. The Institute of food hygiene supervision and inspection of the Ministry of health has successively tested 206 products sampled from several enterprises in Shenyang, Liaoning, Jilin, Shanghai and Guangxi. Using the national standard testing method, only 32 products are lower than 50, accounting for 15.5%, 100 products are 50-150, accounting for 48.5%, and 74 products are 150-300, accounting for 36%, that is, more than 90% of the product dissolution exceeds the standard, and the same group of products is tested by the U.S. FDA, All the indicators of the residue extracted after filtration are less than 30, which is completely qualified. In view of this practice, the Ministry of health has drafted the hygienic standard for plant fiber food containers and packaging materials, revised the part of the national standard on detection methods, and plans to agree to adopt the chloroform filtration method of FDA. At present, this standard has been approved and will be promulgated and implemented in the near future. Therefore, it can be said that the problem of excessive dissolved substances in the pulp mold industry has been fundamentally solved

3. Improved product performance

pulp mold product, as a new product, has found a series of new problems through user trial after it was launched on the market. For example, the fast food industry can fully meet the needs without leakage and deformation in three hours, so the national standard is also formulated in this way. However, the use of some specific products puts forward new requirements for the product to meet the needs of a wide range of users. For example, the use of instant noodle bowls requires a shelf life of 6 months, while paper products, due to their strong permeability, will cause environmental humidity to penetrate the paper products and immerse in instant noodles, causing food deterioration. Another example is the increasing number of food and vegetable trays in supermarkets, which require refrigeration in the refrigerator for several days, while paper packaging will soften due to moisture absorption, affecting the appearance and performance of products. At the same time, most export products are also required to be used in refrigerators, which also encounter the problem of product deformation. This has greatly affected the sales of products, especially the orders of large quantities of domestic and foreign customers. In order to solve these key constraints, industry associations have organized relevant enterprises to tackle key technical problems. Under the guidance of international famous companies such as DuPont company of the United States, Atto company of France and Mitsubishi company of Japan, as well as domestic scientific research institutes such as the Institute of chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the China papermaking and pulping Research Institute, the labor and Health Institute of the Ministry of Railways, the Hangzhou Institute of chemistry and the Xinjiang Institute of chemistry, phased progress has been made. The air permeability of the product has been preliminarily solved through different processes, such as film covering process, spraying process, internal sizing process and so on. After these processes, the air permeability of the product basically reaches the level of similar plastic products, which can meet the actual requirements of different users

4. Enhance the international competitiveness of products

at present, the international legislation prohibiting the use of plastic foaming tableware has been implemented in many developed countries such as Europe and the United States. China's pulp mold tableware with herbaceous plants as raw materials has become the best substitute because of its beautiful appearance, pure nature, easy degradation, good performance, low price and other advantages, and its production scale and technical level are in a leading position in the world

at present, dealers in the United States, Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea and other countries are actively discussing joint ventures and cooperation with us and product exports. According to the current development trend, as a new green product, pulp mold tableware will become a new force in China's export earnings

to sum up, the pulp mold industry has gradually entered a mature stage after a difficult entrepreneurial period, and can shoulder the historical responsibility of supporting new industries after the prohibition of white pollution. As the organization and Coordination Department of the industry, the pulp mold industry association will continue to play its due role in promoting the healthy development of the whole industry and making new contributions to China's environmental protection. (Zhang Yong