Asia Symbol adheres to the principle of energy saving and emission reduction to protect the environment and lead in the derive towards sustainable pulp and paper production. As such, the company focuses on developing various energy saving and emission reduction initiatives. On 13 October 2014, a reporter was at Asia Symbol (Shandong) Pulp & Paper Co., Ltd. (SSYMB) to report on the progress of some of these initiatives.

In order to eradicate the unpleasant smell from the wastewater treatment plant, SSYMB undertook a RMB 8 million project to seal the primary sedimentation tank and to utilize the membrane structure to reduce the odor. The project commenced in April 2014 and is currently at the debugging phase.

In the control room of the wastewater treatment plant, every treatment process is clearly displayed on the seven computer monitors. Xu Qiang, SSYMB staff, tells the reporter, “We closely monitor data such as the PH value, conductivity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, COD, etc so as to ensure that various indices after the treatment process conform to the stipulated environment standards.”

To further save clean water resources and improve water recycling rates of urban water, SSYMB invests RMB 68 million to adopt ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis membrane treatment technology from Singapore that recycles the discharged water from Rizhao No. 1 Wastewater Treatment Plant for pulp and paper production. The facility has a daily treatment capacity for 40,000 tons, producing 28,000 tons per day of recycled water, which means reduced annual consumption of over 10 million tons of fresh water, reduced annual emission of 370 tons of COD and 40 tons of ammonia nitrogen. This “urban sewage recycle” project for pulp production serves as a model for sustainable development and is the first-of-its-kind in China.

Another initiative that contributes to the environment project is the sludge desiccation project. In order to reduce the environmental impact caused by solid wastes discharge, SSYMB invests RMB 12 million to further desiccate the sludge produced in the process of pulp production. The sludge after desiccation is then used for power generation by combustion, thereby turning waste into treasure.

Translated from an article published in http://epaper.rznews.cn/shtml/hhcb/20141015/336913.shtml