Asia Symbol (Shandong) Paper Co., Ltd.: Sewage Recycling bears fruit with both environmental and financial benefits

Company Profile
Asia Symbol (Shandong) Paper Co., Ltd., a member of the RGE Group, is a world leading producer of pulp and paper. As the biggest pulp producer in China, Asia Symbol is operating a production line featuring the largest single line and the most environmental friendly pulp production line in the world with the most advanced technology and equipment. It is a bench-marking enterprise committed to upgrade industry, advance technology and sustainable development.
Challenge
Rizhao, Shangdong province, a city with low annual rainfall and uneven rainfall distribution, becomes one of China’s cities short of fresh water resource. At present, the city’s main water-supply source comes from reservoir. Therefore, Rizhao began to supply water according to water usage, namely to classify water supply into industrial and domestic categories, to relieve water shortage. Asia Symbol, as a big “water consumer”, echoed with Rizhao’s measure, helping to boost sustainable water recycle in this city.
Solution
Recycled water is an efficient method to solve water shortage. From the prospective of saving water, recycled water can replace portion of water consumption in enterprises, so as to avoid the excessive exploitation of groundwater resources. Asia Symbol introduced city sewage recycling project and made sufficient verification of its necessity and feasibility. They have invested 68.4 million RMB (about 110.3 million dollars) to construct environmental comprehensive renovation project. The project is at present being well-operated, realizing fine economic, ecological and social benefits.
Innovating technological solution realized the reuse of urban waste water
Asia Symbol has confirmed the major object of its project to wipe out suspended solids (SS) in water. By reducing the SS level in suspended organics, they apply the recycled water into industrial production and finally replace part of clean water resource. Asia Symbol has chosen to introduce the process design and main equipment from Singapore to dispose the sewage. The recycled water proved to have better quality than surface water, which can not only substitute clean water, but further reduce the cost of disposing raw water.
Recycled water in pulp production
Asia Symbol has adopted the world’s most advanced technology  to promote the recycling of water used in pulp’s washing and filtering,, and has reduced the generation and emission of pollutants from the source. The paperboard workshop has employed advanced white water recovery system to promote the recycling of water, which greatly reduced the sewage discharge. At present, the water reuse rate of this project is as high as 90%. At the same time, waste water was successfully recycled after three-level decoloration.
Achievements
The sewage recycles project recycled urban waste water, disposed them and then put them into industrial production. This measure reduced the discharge of urban sewage, increased industrial water consumption and meanwhile reduced the use of fresh water, helping to realize a virtuous circle of ecological environment. Developing and utilizing urban sewage broadens the methods of supplying water resource. The recovery of sewage can effectively alleviate water scarcity in city. Besides, this project also bore fruits with economic benefits by saving 7.8 million RMB (about 1.25 million dollars) of operating cost for Asia Symbol.
Prospect
Under the support of municipal government of Rizhao, next, Asia Symbol will dispose more domestic sewage and continue to intensify their efforts in disposing their own industrial waste water, endeavoring to increase the daily capacity of company’s waste water to 30 thousand tons in three years. In addition, Asia Symbol has already shared their experience of their projects in related meetings in Rizhao, providing effective reference for transforming and upgrading, and sustainable utilization of urban water resource.