Waste paper recycling decision system based on material flow analysis and life cycle assessment: A case study of waste paper recycling from China

Journal of Environmental Management 255 (2020) 109859

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Research article

Waste paper recycling decision system based on material flow analysis and life cycle assessment: A case study of waste paper recycling from China Manzhi Liu a, *, Shuai Tan a, Mengya Zhang a, Gang He b, **, Zhizhi Chen a, Zhiwei Fu a, Changjin Luan a a b

School of Management, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China Department of Technology and Society, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, 11794, USA

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Waste paper recycling Material flow Life cycle assessment Sensitivity analysis Scenario prediction

China’s paper industry development is rapid, but the recycling rate of China’s waste paper has been low all the time. Meanwhile, material flow analysis can help determine the flow of waste paper, and life cycle assessment (LCA) is the methodological framework for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, present study in­ tegrates these two methods into the model construction of China’s waste paper recycling decision system. Present study constructs a benchmark model of China’s waste paper recycling decision system in 2017, focusing on the impact of nonstandard waste paper recycling on the economic and environmental benefits of China’s domestic waste paper recycling system. This model construction is followed by sensitivity analysis of the relevant pa­ rameters affecting the efficiency of the waste paper recycling system. Finally, present study forecasts the system’s economic benefits and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the context of integrating and regulating nonstandard recycling vendors. The results show that the economic benefit of China’s waste paper recycling in 2017 is approximately 458.3 yuan/t and that the GHG emissions are 901.1 kgCO2eq. The standard recovery rate and nonstandard recovery acceptance rate will both have a significant impact on the system’s economic benefits and improve the GHG emissions structure. In the context of integrating nonstandard recycling enterprises and in­ dividual recycling vendors, the economic benefits will rise to 3312.5 yuan/t in 2030, while GHG emissions will rise to 942.9 kgCO2eq. Present study can play a certain guiding role for policy makers in formulating waste paper recycling industry specifications and formulating relevant policies.

1. Introduction Waste recycling has always been a major environmental issue of concern to all countries. Compared with e-waste, which are the elec­ trical or electronic equipment that is discarded and no longer used, with serious pollution and high recycling value, it has been difficult for the recycling of waste paper to draw attention because the waste paper itself is relatively clean and the recycling value is relatively not high (Liu et al., 2018; Qiao et al., 2019). China has become the world’s largest producer of paper and paper products, but its huge production and consumption are in contrast to China’s low waste paper recycling rate (Wang, 2018). However, most recyclable waste paper can be recycled (Chen, 2018; Dalmo et al., 2019), so the low recycling rate leads to a large amount of resource waste, and a large amount of greenhouse gases

are generated in improper recycling and treatment, which seriously hinders the realization of China’s carbon emission reduction target. Meanwhile, the problems in waste paper recycling, such as the lack of standards in the waste paper recycling industry, the dominance of nonstandard recycling, and the lack of residents’ awareness of recycling, have never been solved (Steuer et al., 2018; Xiao et al., 2018). Therefore, it is necessary to carry out research on the material flow process of waste paper in China, which evaluates the economic and environmental ben­ efits of waste paper recycling and reuse, and reveal and solve the diffi­ culties in recycling and reuse. There have been some papers on the recycling of waste paper. Liang et al. (2012) and Merrild et al. (2008) analyzed the significance of waste paper recycling from the perspective of resources and energy conser­ vation. For example, by studying the increase in the recovery rate of

* Corresponding author. ** Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M. Liu), [email protected] (S. Tan), [email protected] (M. Zhang), [email protected] (G. He), [email protected] (Z. Chen), [email protected] (Z. Fu), [email protected] (C. Luan). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.109859 Received 5 July 2019; Received in revised form 11 November 2019; Accepted 11 November 2019 0301-4797/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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waste paper in Europe, it is concluded that waste paper recycling is conducive to saving forest resources in the long run (Tatoutchoup, 2016). Not only does the value of recycling exist in the waste paper it­ self, but recycling can also increase the feasibility of the waste paper economic cycle through process improvements (Campano et al., 2018; Gomes et al., 2018; Seo et al., 2017). It is necessary to analyze the current situation of waste paper recycling and to establish a model to evaluate the waste recycling system, including waste paper, from a qualitative and quantitative perspective (Aciu et al., 2014; Mirkovic et al., 2015; Ouda et al., 2017; Tatoutchoup, 2016). From a macro perspective, Ervasti et al. (2016) and Sevign� e-Itoiz et al. (2015) sum­ marized the main processes of the whole life cycle of waste paper and some standard parameters for describing waste paper recycling. In addition, some papers explore the factors that influence residents’ mo­ tives for waste recycling and propose their own policy suggestions to governments and policy makers (Pivnenko et al., 2015; Tiew et al., 2019; Xiao et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2016). By exploring China’s waste paper recycling system, relevant research has revealed the chaotic management system of China’s waste paper industry and the status quo of scattered individual traders (Liu et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2010; Yang et al., 2012; Zhang and Liu, 2012). It is difficult to form a system for management because the majority of people or companies in the waste paper recycling industry in China are small scattered traders or small-scale recycling centers consisting of individuals (Steuer et al., 2018). In present study, the method of recycling waste paper usually taken by individual traders or small recycling workshop who are lack of professional equipment and technical support is known as the nonstandard recycling (NS). Relatively speaking, large sorting and recycling centers with the support of complete equipment and special­ ized staff are the practitioners of standard recycling(S) of waste paper. China’s waste paper has always been dominated by NS, which ulti­ mately hinders the establishment of a standard recycling system because of the high cost and poor quality of the NS (Ma et al., 2019). At present, most studies have carried out qualitative analysis but lack actual quantitative data support. Thus, a model of China’s waste paper recy­ cling system is constructed and the impact of NS is quantitatively analyzed on the whole waste paper recycling system in present study. Then targeted suggestions are proposed to improve China’s waste paper recycling system based on the results of sensitivity analysis and scenario prediction. Material flow analysis (MFA) refers to the systematic analysis and evaluation of the material flow and storage in a specific system within a certain spatial and temporal scope. It comprehensively considers the source, path, intermediate process and final destination of the material flow and controls the material balance of each link in the flow process according to the law of conservation of material or energy. Specifically, this means that the inflow of material equals the outflow of material in the same link. Due to this remarkable feature of material flow analysis, it is used as a basic theoretical method to study resource management, waste management, environmental management and other issues. For example, Duygan and Meylan (2015) and Tran et al. (2018) used it to analyze the material flow and substance flow of TVs, a typical electronic waste in Vietnam. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a common method for resource and environmental management and research. LCA can effectively analyze and evaluate environmental resources, especially the impact of product systems on the environment (Cellura et al., 2018; Herbert et al., 2016; Su et al., 2017). In Europe, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and other countries have implemented policies and relevant regulations on prod­ uct life cycle environmental management. Le et al. (2018a; Le et al., 2018b) and Tam et al. (2018) have studied and developed a model based on Green star, one of many green-building rating systems, for assessing the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of Australian building materials through LCA. Besides, LCA can also compare the feasibility and efficiency of different scenarios through cost and benefit analysis (Tam et al., 2019a). To assess the economic and environmental

benefits of substances, the premise of LCA is to establish the activity €m, 2007). chain that reflects the flow of substances (Sand� en and Karlstro From this perspective, MFA can show the connections of substances in various activities that have economic and environmental impacts. At the same time, from the perspective of material flow dynamics, the pa­ rameters that change over time can also be directly predicted by influ­ encing the size of the material flow and, thus, the final environmental and economic benefits (Mathieux and Brissaud, 2010). Therefore, MFA with LCA are combined to analyze the material flow and structure of China’s current waste paper recycling system. Then, the economic benefits and environmental GHG emissions will be evaluated through the quantitative model. Finally, policy recommendations are proposed to improve the waste paper recycling system by using sensitivity analysis to reveal the main influencing factors affecting waste paper recycling and forecasting the waste paper recycling decision system by setting different policy scenarios. 2. Methodology The methodology proposed consists of two steps in present study. 1) Material flow analysis is used to establish a waste paper recycling system material flow diagram to organize the activities, flow direc­ tion and flow rate of domestic waste paper in China. 2) Based on the waste material flow diagram, the material flow analysis results combined with a life cycle inventory analysis model are used to evaluate the economic and environmental benefits (GHG emis­ sions) of waste paper recycling. 2.1. Material flow analysis 2.1.1. Scope and system boundaries The waste papers studied in present study include waste bins, scrap books, and waste newspapers (World Wide Fund for Nature or World Wildlife Fund, 2018). The temporal and spatial boundaries are the year 2017 and China. Ervasti et al. (2016) pointed out that the main activities of the paper closed-loop supply chain are “paper production”, “paper consumption”, “paper recycling” and “paper reusing”. In the stages from “paper consumption” to “paper recycling”, not all paper can be recycled (Sevign�e-Itoiz et al., 2015); thus, “other options” means that the waste paper is processed instead of being recycled. Some papers have extended the life cycle assessment boundary of paper and board into six stages: forest plantation management, pulp and paper production, transport, pulp and paper recycling, incineration and landfill (Yang et al., 2012). Alternatively, other papers have proposed eight stages: wood crops, wood chip production, virgin pulp production, paper and board (PB) manufacturing, PB product production, use, waste management (collection and sorting), and recycling (Sevign� e-Itoiz et al., 2015). Combined with the above, present study proposes that the life cycle of paper mainly includes six activities: wood chip production, virgin pulp production, PB production, use (stock), paper recycling, and nonrecyclable waste paper processing. Additionally, pulp production is divided into forward virgin pulp production and reverse waste pulp production（including disintegration, pulping, dinking, dispersing, bleaching and beating), and nonrecyclable waste paper is treated as municipal solid waste (Ferr~ ao et al., 2014; Dai and Zhao, 2017). Most of China’s urban solid waste treatment consists of incineration and burying (China statistical yearbook, 2018), and there are also a small number of indirect losses to the environment. Fly ash will be generated after the incineration and it has the value of building cement, concrete and other building materials (Shiqin Y. and Kwesi S., 2012), but Luo et al. (2019) conclude that fly ash has the problems such as high chloride ion content, high toxic leaching, high energy consumption and heavy metal leaching respectively in the production of cement, concrete, hydite aggregate concrete and road building materials. In general, the reuse of the fly ash 2

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Journal of Environmental Management 255 (2020) 109859

can hardly come to realization in a short time in China, so the potential of fly ash is not considered after burning waste paper. The waste paper recycling process is divided into standard recycling and nonstandard recycling (Liu et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2010). To comprehensively show the life cycle of Chinese paper and to consider the import and export activities of paper and related products, it is shown in present study that the trading activities of international and domestic paper-related prod­ ucts, including the import of wood, virgin pulp and paper products as well as the export of wood pulp and paper products. Details are shown in Fig. 1. In Fig. 1, “recycling (S)” and “recycling (NS)” represent the two recycling ways: standard recycling and nonstandard recycling, respec­ tively. In present study, with the lack of corresponding facilities for NS, only standard waste paper recycling centers are shown. At the same time, according to the survey conducted by the China Resources Recy­ cling Association (CRRA) in November 2018, many large paper-making enterprises in China have gradually started to establish standardized waste paper recycling and sorting centers, and they even directly cooperate with downstream packaging enterprises and users to directly recycle waste corrugated boxes and industrial waste paper. Some recy­ cled paper is sold directly to paper mills by individual recycling vendors, while other recycled paper is sold to regulated recycling centers (Wang et al., 2010; Zhang and Liu, 2012). In addition, there are imports and exports of wood, virgin pulp, paper and board and waste paper between China and foreign countries. Fig. 1 also lists the main emissions during paper production, focusing on pulp production, PB production and waste paper incineration in municipal solid waste systems.

nonrecyclable waste paper. Nonrecyclable waste paper usually has no value because of the complexity of its recycling treatment; this kind of waste paper includes waste paper pasted with paint or oil, label stickers, plastic glossy waste paper, wax paper and carbon paper. China’s recy­ clable waste paper mainly includes used cardboard boxes, used books, waste newspapers and some other recyclable waste paper (World Wide Fund for Nature or World Wildlife Fund, 2018). To assess the recovery, sorting and utilization of waste paper, the following indicators are set: Recovery rate (R), Standard Recovery rate (α), Nonstandard Recovery rate (β), Acceptance rate of standard recovered paper (η), Acceptance rate of nonstandard recovered paper (λ), and Distribution rate (ϴ). The definition of the Recovery rate (R) has not yet been standardized. Ervasti et al. (2016) listed the recovery rates that appeared in some studies from 2003 to 2013, and there were differences between different countries and regions. Therefore, the recovery rate is calculated by the following equation:

2.1.2. Accounting methods of flows The material flows involved in the system studied in present study and their calculations are based on the principle of mass conservation. For each stage in the system, the total inflow into the stage is equal to the total outflow out of the stage. The total input of each process is equal to the sum of the production, inventory and losses of each process, while the outflow of this stage, namely, the inflow of the next stage, is equal to the difference between the total input and the consumption of this stage.

Nonstandard Recovery rateðβÞ ¼

Recovery rate（R） ¼

recovered waste paper ð * 100%Þ paper and board consumed

(1)

According to Fig. 1, the term “paper and board consumed” refers to the paper and board sold to the customers in China during one year (China paper industry annual report 2017,2017).As a result, the stan­ dard recovery rate and the nonstandard recovery rate are calculated by the following equations: Standard Recovery rateðαÞ ¼

standard recovered waste paper *ð100%Þ paper and board consumed

(2)

nonstandard recovered waste paper *ð100%Þ paper and board consumed (3)

With the lack of waste paper recycling regulations, Chinese recycling staff with low quality add various impurities to recycled waste paper; in particular, the quality of nonstandard waste paper is quite low. The quality of recycled waste paper directly affects the amount of waste paper that can be reused. Thus, the acceptance rate of standard recov­ ered paper and the acceptance rate of nonstandard recovered paper are calculated by the following equations:

2.1.3. Performance indicators Recyclable waste paper refers to the paper that has value to be used and recovered to make paper products, which corresponds to

Acceptance rate of standard recovered paperη

Fig. 1. Chinese paper and board Life cycle system boundaries. 3

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¼

standard recovered paper utilized ð * 100%Þ standard recovered paper

Journal of Environmental Management 255 (2020) 109859

come from the Ecoinvent LCA database.

(4)

2.2.3. Life cycle impact assessment As with other products or services, the environmental impact of the waste paper recycling system should be listed. The assessment indicators proposed on paper products mainly include global warming potential (GWP) (Sevign�e-Itoiz et al., 2015), acidification (A), eutrophication (E), nonrenewable resource loss (NRRL), and photochemical smog formation (PSF) (Alting et al., 1998). In present study, the GWP of the waste paper recycling system was evaluated mainly by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) method, and the greenhouse effect caused by the GHG emissions produced in the waste paper recycling process was calculated in terms of CO2 equivalent (Sevign�e-Itoiz et al., 2015).

Acceptance rate of nonstandard recoverd paperλ ¼

nonstandard recovered paper utilized ð * 100%Þ nonstandard recovered paper

(5)

As mentioned in the previous part of present study, some nonstan­ dard waste paper without complex sorting process will directly be sold to paper enterprises, and the left in need of specialized sorting work will be sold to standard waste paper sorting centers. Therefore, the nonstandard recovered waste paper distribution rate is calculated by the following equation: Nonstandard Recovered Paper Distribution ðθÞ nonstandard recovered paper sold to sorting centers ¼ *ð100%Þ nonstandard recovered paper

2.3. Benefit evaluation of the waste paper recycling system (6)

2.3.1. Economic benefits In section 2.1.2, some performance indicators are given that mainly affect the waste paper recycling system. In present study, Yt is used to represent the economic benefits from waste paper recycling in year t. In calculating economic benefits, present study considers the income of the waste paper recycling system minus the cost (De Meester et al., 2019; Qiao et al., 2019). According to the PB life cycle framework in Fig. 2, due to the different flow directions and paths of waste paper in the recycling system, waste paper is divided into three parts: the recovered used waste paper (XRU) entering the pulp production process, the recovered waste paper (XRF) collected by sorting centers, and the waste paper (XRN) recycled by individual recycling vendors. The following equations are defined:

2.2. Life cycle assessment 2.2.1. System boundaries and functional units In the recycling process, the emissions of waste paper to the envi­ ronment are mainly concentrated in two stages: waste pulp production and PB production. Therefore, from the perspective of the GHG of the waste paper recycling system to the environment, present study takes recycling, pulp production and PB production as the system boundary of waste paper recycling and focuses on the analysis of the impact of waste paper on the environment under different conditions of S and NS. Ac­ cording to the regulations on the environmental protection of imported waste paper issued by the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection in 2017, imported waste pulp accounts for approximately one-third of all waste pulp, showing that the potential of Chinese waste paper recycling is enormous. However, Chinese domestic paper and the paperboard market have been close to saturation, and the growth in market demand for waste pulp has not been obvious; thus, domestic waste paper with enormous recycling potential will become the domi­ nant market in the Chinese waste paper market in the future. Present study defines the functional unit of LCA as 1 ton of recovered waste paper. According to Chinese waste paper market survey data, 1 ton of paper and board produces approximately 0.8 ton of recyclable waste paper. In addition, according to the China Paper Association annual report in 2017, it is estimated that 1 ton of waste paper can produce 0.8 ton of pulp.

XRU ¼ XRU;F *η þ XRU;N *λ

(7)

XRF ¼ XRU;F þ XRU;N *θ

(8)

XRN ¼ XRU;N *（1

(9)

θ）

In formula (7), XRU,F represents the amount of standard recovered waste paper generated per unit paper and board consumed, XRU,N rep­ resents the amount of nonstandard waste paper generated per unit paper and board consumed, and these two parts of waste paper will eventually merge into the pulp production process. In formula (8), part of the nonstandard recovered waste paper will enter the pulp production process after sorting and treatment in sorting centers. As a result, this part of waste paper is represented using the distribution rate. Formula (9) represents the amount of waste paper that is not recycled in sorting centers and that is processed by individual recycling vendors. When calculating the economic benefits of the paper recycling system, because both standard recovered paper and nonstandard recovered paper share the same source, their prices PR are the same in present study（China resource recycling association, 2018; Cheung and Pachisia, 2015). Recovered used paper will be converted into recycled paper and board after pulp production, and there is a certain conversion ratio €derholm (2003), during these processes. According to Berglund and So combined with data from the annual report of the China Paper Associ­ ation (2017), this ratio τ is approximately 0.8. Therefore, present study establishes the following economic model of the recycling system:

2.2.2. Inventory analysis Inventory analysis is a qualitative and quantitative analysis of resource and energy use and the waste discharged into the environment (e.g., air, water and soil) in the whole life cycle of the system under study, such as the processes and activities of products (Chen and Liu, 2014). In the waste paper recycling system, present study uses the ISO14040 series standard in the drafting of the technical framework of the LCA evaluation method to determine the goal of LCA throughout the life cycle list analysis and the boundaries of the system. The amounts of inputs (raw materials, auxiliary materials and energy, etc.) and outputs (emissions to air, water, and soil and solid waste) are determined in each process to form a full life cycle inventory and to conduct impact assessment. Quantitative evaluation and result interpretation are carried out on inventory data, and the results of inventory analysis and impact assessment are combined to make the results of inventory analysis consistent with the goals and scope determined. In the process of recovered paper use, pulp production and paper making have a considerable amount of emissions to the environment, generally contributing more than 85% of emissions to the environment. Therefore, present study mainly performs an environmental benefit evaluation of these two stages. In addition to the estimated data, the data in the listing

Yt ¼ PRU �ðXRU;F �ηþXRU;N �λÞ�τ PR �ðXRU;F þXRU;N Þ CS � ðXRU;F þXRU;N �θÞ CR �ðXRU;N � ð1

θÞÞ

(10)

In formula (10), PRU represents the price of recycled paper and board. The S and NS of waste paper differ greatly not only in the recy­ cling channels but also in the management as well as in the treatment equipment and methods after waste paper is collected (Ouda et al., 2017; Pivnenko et al., 2015). Therefore, when calculating the economic benefits of the waste paper recycling system, it is necessary to distin­ guish the costs of standard recycling and nonstandard recycling. In 4

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Journal of Environmental Management 255 (2020) 109859

Fig. 2. Chinese paper and board life cycle in 2017.

present study, CS is used to represent the unit cost of S, and CR is the unit cost of NS.

GHG emissions into two parts: the normal GHG emissions generated during the waste paper collection and pulp production and paper mak­ ing stages and the secondary GHG emissions due to the management or impurities of recycled waste paper itself. Present study defines the following environmental model:

2.3.2. Environmental impacts When considering the environmental emissions of waste paper, present study mainly adopts the IPCC 2001 assessment method (Chen and Liu, 2014), focusing on the GHG emissions of the waste paper recycling system to the environment (Lopes et al., 2003). Regarding the economic model of the waste paper recycling system, Et is used to represent the GHG emissions caused per waste paper recycling unit in year t. Due to different recycling methods, waste paper also has great differences in environmental emissions. According to recommendations for the sustainable development of paper recycling in China, 66% of the recyclable paper in China consists of cardboard boxes, while waste books and newspapers account for 23% and 10%, respectively. In pre­ sent study, the GHG emissions of the above three types of recyclable paper were comprehensively considered, and the mean GHG emissions of waste paper to the environment were calculated according to the proportion of three kinds of recyclable paper. And the transportation in the waste paper recycling is complex and not the main cause of emis­ sions, so we used estimates when considering the emissions of trans­ portation (Chen and Liu, 2014). In the calculation process, the IPCC 2001 global warming index parameters and the corresponding data in the Ecoinvent database, combined with relevant China’s reports, were comprehensively considered. In the entire recycling process, certain GHG emissions will be produced during the pulp and recycled paper production stages (Dai and Zhao, 2017). However, the waste paper in the recycling process will have an impact on the environment itself or because of the lower acceptance rate of waste paper. The treatment of impurities or other solid waste also produces secondary emissions to the environment (Zacho et al., 2018). Therefore, present study divides the

Et ¼ ðXRU;F �ηþXRU;N �λÞ � τ�ETW;c þ ðXRU;F �ð1

ηÞþXRU;N �ð1

λÞÞ�ETW;o (11)

In formula (11), ETW,c represents the GHG emissions to the envi­ ronment caused per unit recovered paper and paperboard to the envi­ ronment, ETW,O represents secondary GHG emissions to the environment caused per unit recovered waste paper during the waste paper recycling process. The main GHG emitted by waste paper in the recycling system are CO2, CH4, CO and N2O, and the proportion of N2O in GHG emissions is so small that it can be neglected (Kazulis et al., 2018). In present study, the GHG emission data in Table 1 and the Ecoinvent database are used to calculate the specific values of ETW,C using equation (12). ETW;C ¼

X X （εm Gm;i *ωi ）

(12)

In equation (12), m represents the category of recyclable waste paper, including used cardboard boxes, used books and old newspapers, Table 1 Major greenhouse gas parameters of global warming.

5

Environmental categories

Indicators

Parameters

Weight

Source

Global warming， 100 years (GW)

Global warming trends (kgCO2 equivalent)

CO2 CH4 N2O CO

1 23 296 1.57

IPCC(2011) ( Chen and Liu, 2014)

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and i represents the category of GHG emissions, including CO2, CH4 and CO. Gm,i represents the amount of GHG emitted to the environment by waste paper of type m, while ωi represents the weight of different GHG in the IPCC guidelines (2011) (Chen and Liu, 2014). In terms of the waste paper causing secondary emissions, since this part of waste paper loses its recycling value as nonrecyclable waste paper, it can be treated as nonrecyclable waste paper (Esmaeilian et al., 2018). Therefore, in the calculation of ETWO, present study uses the data of environmental emissions of nonrecyclable waste paper in municipal waste systems.

and lost in the environment, respectively (China statistical China labor statistics yearbook, 2018). As is shown in Fig. 2, the “other materials” in “waste pulp production” and “PB production” mainly includes hydrogen peroxide, sodium silicate, caustic soda, bleach and other papermaking aid in paper production. The recyclable waste paper entering the recy­ cling system is mainly divided into two parts. The smaller part, approximately 14.3% of recyclable waste paper, is standard recycled paper, and the thicker arrow indicates that 85.7% of recyclable waste paper is nonstandard recycled paper. Due to the low acceptance rate of nonstandard waste paper, some nonstandard vendors sell this waste paper to standard recycling centers, while others sell the waste paper directly to paper enterprises. It is assumed in the present study that the distribution rate is 50% based on the data in China paper industry annual report in 2017 through a reverse calculation (Tran et al., 2018). Therefore, it is observed that 37,371 kt of recycled used waste paper enters the packaging and sorting process, and the other part enters waste pulp production after its impurities are removed. Although there are differences in the intermediate stages between the nonstandard recov­ ered waste paper directly entering paper enterprises and the nonstan­ dard recovered waste paper entering paper enterprises after going through sorting centers, their acceptance rate is the same with the same starting point. Standard sorted waste paper and nonstandard recycled waste paper enter the waste pulp production process after their impu­ rities are removed. This part accounts for 67.3% of the total recycled waste paper, and 22.7% of imported waste paper produces 63,020 kt of waste pulp, which, together with virgin pulp, is used for the production of paper and board, constituting the whole life cycle of paper and board. In Fig. 2, there is a significant difference in the thickness of the ar­ rows from the use (stock) stage to the paper recycling (S) and paper recycling (NS) stages, which is consistent with the previous description in present study: almost all waste paper in China is recycled by some nonstandard individual vendors, and only approximately 50.75% of recovered waste paper is reused because of its low quality. Such a low efficiency will inevitably result in a large amount of wasted resources and a high waste paper recycling cost. Thus, if waste paper can be recycled effectively in China, then the domestic amount of recycled waste paper produced every year will completely satisfy the need of waste pulp production. Meanwhile, China’s waste paper recovery rate was only 48.5% in 2017 (China Paper Association, 2017); therefore, in addition to the limitation of technical conditions, the high proportion of nonstandard recycling is the greatest reason why the recovery rate of waste paper is still low in China. Besides, present study will establish an economic and environmental benefits model of the waste paper recy­ cling system.

2.3.3. Comprehensive benefit According to the objective laws of modern industrial economic development, economic benefits are often closely related to environ­ mental pollution (Hammed et al., 2018). How to efficiently recycle waste products and reduce carbon emissions has become a common concern of governments and enterprises. Carbon tax has become an effective solution to the high carbon environment in human society, promoting enterprises to achieve energy conservation and emission reduction as well as high efficiency (Xie et al., 2018). Therefore, on the basis of sections 2.3.1 and 2.3.2, present study combines the two models through carbon tax to establish the comprehensive benefits index YCB: YCB;t ¼ Yt

CC;t *Et

(13)

In equation (13), CC,t represents the price of the carbon tax in China in year t, while the current price of carbon tax in China is 30 yuan/ton (Zhou et al., 2018). The data of recovery rate, standard recovery rate, nonstandard recovery rate and paper cost come from the relevant re­ ports and yearbooks (China Paper Association annual report, 2017; China statistical yearbook, 2018; China industrial statistics yearbook, 2017; China labor statistics yearbook, 2018). The acceptance rate of waste paper is estimated by the related reports (China Paper Association annual report, 2017). The unit GHG emissions of waste paper is referred to the relevant book (Chen and Liu, 2014) and the Ecoinvent database; the price data of recycled paper and paperboard and recycled waste paper are from CHINAPAPER.NET website (http://www.chinapaper. net/). Through calculation, the economic benefit of waste paper recy­ cling in 17 years is 458.3 yuan/t, and the environmental GHG emission is 901.1 kgCO2eq/t. 3. Results analysis 3.1. Chinese paper material flow analysis in 2017 Taking 2017 as the benchmark year, e!Sankey 4.0 software is used to visualize the Chinese paper and board life cycle in 2017 (Sevign�e-Itoiz et al., 2015). The figure shows the state of the material flow, storage and loss over the life cycle of paper and board in 2017, and it includes China and the international market environment. The box represents the ac­ tivities of paper and board in each stage of their life cycle. The different-colored arrows represent the flow of different material flows in the initial two activities, and the one-way arrows represent the input of raw materials and resources or the discharge of wastes. The original activity of paper and board is wood chip production. According to data from the China forestry statistical yearbook in 2017, regarding the input into the virgin pulp production process in 2017, 37% of the total amount, approximately 6074 kt, is domestically produced wood, and the remaining 63%, approximately 10,266 kt, is imported wood. The im­ ported wood and domestic wood would become the virgin pulp after the virgin pulp production, which consist of the total virgin pulp together with the 21,150 kt of the imported virgin pulp. At the same time, approximately 1/3 of the virgin pulp of paper pulp is used in the pro­ duction of paper and paperboard. In the process of use (stock), 108,970 kt of paper and paperboard is consumed. Apart from partial storage, approximately 87,176 kt of recyclable waste paper is generated in the waste paper recycling system. A total of 60.3%, 36.5% and 3.2% of the waste paper entering municipal waste systems are incinerated, dumped

3.2. Sensitivity analysis With the material flow analysis of paper and board in Fig. 2, S and NS will have different impacts on the total cost, economic benefit and GHG emissions in the whole process of the waste paper recycling system. Since 2014, the market demand of China’s pulp, between 79,000 kt and 80,000 kt, has been relatively stable. Because recycling waste paper does not get high value, the spatial distribution of individual vendors will be continuously smaller without forming a scale effect. Above all, it is assumed that the nonstandard recovery rate of the waste paper remains unchanged. Under the condition of an increasing recovery rate in China, the influence of the increase in the standard recovery rate on the eco­ nomic benefit, environmental benefit and comprehensive benefit are listed in Table 2. In 2017, the recycling rate of waste paper in China reached nearly 50%; thus, the starting point of present study is set as 0.5. The recycling rate of waste paper in the European Union reached a theoretical value of 71.5% (Zhang, 2017), so the terminal point is set as 0.7 (Wang, 2018). MATLAB software was used to visualize the recovery rate based on the economic indicators, comprehensive benefit indicators and GHG emis­ sion line chart, combined with the data in Table 2. When the recovery 6

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Journal of Environmental Management 255 (2020) 109859

system are reduced by 59.4 kgCO2eq, down by approximately 18.3%. At the same time the proportion of effective GHG emissions that account for the total GHG emissions of the entire waste paper recycling system increased from 64% to 71.1%. This indicator can be used to describe the efficiency of the GHG emissions from the waste paper recycling system. The increase in this indicator indicates that more waste paper in the recycling system has been effectively recycled, which not only increases the amount of waste paper used for pulp and PB production but also reduces the environmental impact of nonstandard recycling. In China’s waste paper recycling system, in addition to the low proportion of standard recycling, the quality of standard recycling and nonstandard recycling waste paper is also quite different. Normal sort­ ing centers are restricted by the national industry standard and have strict regulations on noise, emissions and pollution. However, due to the limited amount of recycling, low recycling efficiency and imperfect supporting facilities, some individual vendors engaged in nonstandard recycling are often unable to effectively sort the waste paper recovered from residents; thus, the quality of the waste paper recovered is low (Zhang et al., 2016; Maklawe et al., 2019). Therefore, present study analyzes the acceptance rate λ sensitivity of nonstandard recycled waste paper to the benefit of the waste paper recycling system, and the analysis results are listed in Table 3. Table 3 is also used to visualize the broken line chart of nonstandard waste paper acceptance rate λ with the economic index, comprehensive benefit and GHG emissions using MATLAB. Again, λ is set from 0.5 to 0.7 (Guo,2018; Wang, 2018). In combination with Table 3 and Fig. 5, pre­ sent study has found that when λ changes from 0.5 to 0.7, the economic benefit per unit recycling increases from 419.3 yuan to 1458 yuan, and the income per unit waste paper directly becomes 3.5 times that of the original. On one hand, this enormous change indicates that the NS ef­ ficiency of the small and medium-sized individual vendors has a great impact on the economic benefits; on the other hand, it reflects that the resource waste and loss caused by NS is too massive to be estimated. Similarly, in Fig. 5, the red and blue lines represent the impact of λ on the economic and comprehensive benefits per unit recovered waste paper, respectively. Additionally, due to the impact of carbon tax, the comprehensive benefit is slightly lower than the economic benefit. Fig. 6 shows the influence of λ on the GHG emissions of the waste paper recycling system, in which total GHG emissions change from 899.8 kgCO2eq to 932.8 kgCO2eq; again, the change is not obvious. However, normal GHG emissions increased from 563.4 kgCO2eq to 721.6 kgCO2eq, an increase of 28.1%. The corresponding secondary GHG emissions decreased from 336.4 kgCO2eq to 211.2 kgCO2eq, down 37.2%. Therefore, improving the acceptance rate of nonstandard waste paper recycling can also improve the efficiency of the whole waste paper recycling system. Effective GHG emissions accounted for 77.4% of total emissions from 62.6%. Therefore, whether from the perspective of economic benefit or GHG emissions, improving λ is significant for the whole waste paper recycling system. Improving the acceptance rate of

Table 2 Sensitivity analysis of the waste paper recovery benefit to the standard recovery rate. Recovery rate

0.485

0.5

0.55

0.6

0.65

0.7

Standard recovery rate Nonstandard recovery rate Acceptance rate Acceptance rate (nonstandard) Distribution rate Economic benefit (yuan/t) Total GHG emission (kgCO2eq/t) Secondary GHG emission (kgCO2eq/t) Normal GHG emission (kgCO2eq/t) Carbon tax (yuan/ t) Comprehensive benefit (yuan/t)

0.097

0.112

0.162

0.212

0.262

0.312

0.388

0.388

0.388

0.388

0.388

0.388

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.5 458.3

0.5 496.3

0.5 608.0

0.5 701.0

0.5 779.8

0.5 847.3

901.1

902.8

907.8

911.9

915.4

918.4

331.7

325.3

306.4

290.6

277.3

265.9

569.4

577.5

601.4

621.3

638.1

652.6

0.030

0.030

0.030

0.030

0.030

0.030

431.2

469.2

580.7

673.7

752.3

819.8

rate of China’s waste paper was from 50% to 70%, the economic benefit per ton of waste paper recycled increased by 351 yuan compared with the original. As a result of the change in the standard recovery rate from 9.7% to 31.2%, the economic benefit of waste paper increases by 84.9%. Thus, the standard recovery of waste paper will bring enormous eco­ nomic benefits. In Fig. 3, the red line represents the curve of the economic index, which changes with the recovery rate, and the blue dotted line repre­ sents the curve of the comprehensive benefit index, which changes with the recovery rate. With the increase on the recovery rate, Yt and YCB,t also clearly increase, but the growth rate slows down slightly. Clearly, the red line and the blue line are close to each other, indicating that the carbon tax has little impact on the economic indicators of waste paper recycling. With the carbon tax maintained, the economic benefit of the carbon tax per unit of waste paper decreases from 5.9% to 3.2%. The solid red line in Fig. 4 shows the relationship between the total GHG emissions and the recovery rate of the entire waste paper recovery system. The green line indicates normal GHG emissions, and the blue line indicates secondary GHG emissions from the recovery process. Although the recovery rate of waste paper increased from 0.5 to 0.7, the total GHG emissions of waste paper in the recycling system did not change significantly, moving only from 902.8 kgCO2eq to 918.4 kgCO2eq. However, normal GHG emissions rise from 577.5 kgCO2eq to 652.6 kgCO2eq, while the secondary GHG emissions of the recovery

Fig. 3. Impact of the recovery rate on the economic and comprehensive benefit. 7

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Journal of Environmental Management 255 (2020) 109859

Fig. 4. Effect of the recovery rate on GHG emissions.

the changing relationship between the economic benefit and compre­ hensive benefit from a change in θ from 0.5 to 1 when the distribution rate gradually increases from 0.5, the unit economic benefit decreases from 458.3 yuan to 217.1 yuan. Clearly, compared with the process in which waste paper is recycled directly by individual vendors, the process in which waste paper is sold by individual vendors to sorting centers for recycling adds another en­ terprise link. With the increase in the distribution rate, the rapid increasing cost eventually leads to a decline in the per unit economic benefit of waste paper recycling from 458.3 yuan to 217.1 yuan. As the distribution reaches the theoretical upper limit of 1, the economic benefit decreases by 52.8%, which indicates that the cost of NS is very high. At present, the higher NS proportion leads to a large amount of NS waste paper, which leads to the higher recycling cost in the waste paper recycling system. When the economic benefit of waste paper recycling is low, the proportion of carbon tax in the economic benefit increases from 5.9 to 12.5% and it has a certain impact on economic efficiency.

Table 3 Sensitivity analysis of the efficiency of the waste paper recovery system to the acceptance rate of nonstandard waste paper recovery. Recovery rate

0.485

0.485

0.485

0.485

0.485

Standard recovery rate Nonstandard recovery rate Acceptance rate Acceptance rate (nonstandard) Distribution rate Economic benefit (yuan/t) Total GHG emission (kgCO2eq/t) Secondary GHG emission (kgCO2eq/t) Normal GHG emission (kgCO2eq/ t) Carbon tax (yuan/t) Comprehensive benefit (yuan/t)

0.097 0.388 0.85 0.5 0.5 419.3 899.8 336.4

0.097 0.388 0.85 0.55 0.5 679.0 908.1 305.1

0.097 0.388 0.85 0.6 0.5 938.7 916.3 273.8

0.097 0.388 0.85 0.65 0.5 1198.3 924.6 242.5

0.097 0.388 0.85 0.7 0.5 1458.0 932.8 211.2

563.4

603.0

642.5

682.1

721.6

0.030 392.3

0.030 651.7

0.030 911.2

0.030 1170.6

0.030 1430.0

nonstandard recycling not only brings enormous economic benefits but also effectively controls the secondary GHG emissions caused by the waste paper recycling system. In China’s waste paper recycling system, the standard recovery rate and nonstandard acceptance rate of waste paper recycling will have an impact on the economic benefit, comprehensive benefit and GHG emissions of waste paper recycling. The distribution rate will also have an impact on the economic and comprehensive benefits of the whole system. However, individual vendors directly sell part of their recovered waste paper, which has been recycled in a more extensive way, to sorting centers. The acceptance rate of waste paper recycled through NS has already been determined because it is not affected by subsequent process (sorting, packaging). Thus, present study conducts a sensitivity analysis of θ to the economic and comprehensive benefits in the following section. Table 4 lists the results of the analysis. Fig. 7 shows

4. Scenario prediction of China’s waste paper recycling system benefits According to the sensitivity analysis, it can be concluded that an increase in the standard recovery rate α and nonstandard recovery waste paper acceptance rate λ will cause an increase in the economic and comprehensive benefits. As the distribution rate increases, the increase in the cost leads to lower economic and overall benefits of paper recy­ cling. From an environmental perspective, an increase in the standard recovery rate α and nonstandard recovery waste paper acceptance rate λ would increase normal GHG emissions, reduce the secondary GHG emissions to improve the efficiency of the GHG emissions of the waste paper recycling system. Based on the data of China paper industry annual report 2014–2017

Fig. 5. Influence of the acceptance rate of nonstandard waste paper on economic and comprehensive benefits. 8

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Journal of Environmental Management 255 (2020) 109859

Fig. 6. Influence of the acceptance rate of nonstandard recycled waste paper on GHG emissions.

approximately 100 demonstration paper processing enterprises that meet the standard conditions in three years. According to the regulations in the waste paper sorting specification, starting from the production capacity of 100,000 tons, it is estimated that the production capacity of standard paper processing enterprises will reach 40%–50% of the mar­ ket share by 2020 approximately. Therefore, in the context of stable growth in China’s waste paper recycling rate, three economic indicators are forecast in the present study from 2018 to 2030. Under this scenario, the Chinese government would strengthen the standardization and integration of the waste paper recycling industry, NS vendors and enterprises with the growth in the standard recovery rate and a decline in the nonstandard recovery rate. Table 5 lists the changes in the three indicators from 2018 to 2030 under the condition of an increasing waste paper recycling rate, and the line chart of the corresponding economic indicators, comprehensive benefit and GHG emissions is visualized with MATLAB. Besides, it can be clearly shown in Table 2 or Table 3 that the re­ covery rate, standard recovery rate and nonstandard recovery rate in 2017 are respectively 48.5%, 9.7% and 38.8%. And it can be found that at the current stable growth rate, China’s waste paper recycling rate will reach 61.9% in 2030, so the waste paper recycling rate will increase by 13.4%. After establishing waste paper recycling industry standards, the standard recovery rate increases from 9.7% to 49%; in comparison, the nonstandard recovery rate decreases from 38.8% to 12.9% Thus, the standard recovery rate increased from 9.7% to 49%, while the recovery rate are 48.5% and 61.9% in 2017 and 2030, so the proportion of standard recycled paper rises from 20% to nearly 80%. The domestic waste paper recycling market is changing from NS to S. At the same time, the economic benefit of recycling rises from 640.7 yuan/ton in 2018–3312.5 yuan/ton in 2030. A standardized waste paper recycling industry in China will present a scale of intensive development; thus, the economic earnings of paper will rise rapidly. Once the specifications for the recycling market are eliminated, the economic benefit of paper

Table 4 The effect of the distribution rate on the economic and comprehensive benefits of waste paper recycling in China. Recovery rate

0.485

0.485

0.485

0.485

0.485

0.485

Standard recovery rate Nonstandard recovery rate Acceptance rate Acceptance rate (nonstandard) Distribution rate Economic benefit (yuan/t) Carbon tax (yuan/ t) Comprehensive benefit (yuan/t)

0.097

0.097

0.097

0.097

0.097

0.097

0.388

0.388

0.388

0.388

0.388

0.388

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.5 458.3

0.6 410.0

0.7 361.8

0.8 313.6

0.9 265.3

1 217.1

0.030

0.030

0.030

0.030

0.030

0.030

431.2

383.0

334.8

286.5

238.3

190.0

and the investigation report of the waste paper recycling industry (Wang, 2018; Niu, 2018), it is chosen in the present study to integrate and regulate NS enterprises and individual recycling vendors to carry out a forecast of the economic benefit, GHG emissions and compre­ hensive benefit of waste paper recycling in China from 2018 to 2030. 4.1. Benefit prediction of the waste paper recycling system under the scenario of integrating nonstandard recycling Integrating nonstandard recycling (INR) refers to the practice of the government by supporting or establishing standard recycling enterprises and gradually eliminating small and medium-sized nonstandard or in­ dividual vendors to engage in waste paper recycling and lead to an in­ crease in general welfare (Wesseh and Lin, 2018). China will launch

Fig. 7. Influence of the distribution rate on economic and comprehensive benefits. 9

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Journal of Environmental Management 255 (2020) 109859

Table 5 Changes in various indicators in the case of integrating nonstandard recycling of waste paper from 2018 to 2030. Year

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

2026

2027

2028

2029

2030

Recovery rate Standard recovery rate Nonstandard recovery rate Acceptance rate Acceptance rate (nonstandard) Recycling price (yuan/ t) Sale price (yuan/t) Unit cost of standard recycling (yuan/t) Unit cost of nonstandard recycling (yuan/t) Economic benefit (yuan/t) GHG emission kgCO2eq/t) Secondary GHG emission (kgCO2eq/ t) Normal GHG emission (kgCO2eq/t) variable carbon tax (yuan/t) Comprehensive benefits (yuan/t) fixed carbon tax (yuan/ t) Comprehensive benefits (yuan/t)

0.494 0.132 0.362

0.504 0.168 0.336

0.513 0.205 0.308

0.523 0.241 0.282

0.533 0.274 0.259

0.543 0.306 0.237

0.553 0.336 0.217

0.563 0.364 0.199

0.574 0.392 0.183

0.585 0.418 0.167

0.596 0.443 0.153

0.607 0.467 0.141

0.619 0.490 0.129

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

0.85 0.5075

2535.0

2558.5

2583.4

2609.8

2637.7

2667.0

2697.9

2730.2

2764.1

2799.6

2836.7

2875.5

2915.9

8357.9 966.4

8605.9 969.6

8866.4 984.1

9136.1 993.1

9417.4 1005.1

9710.1 1015.9

10,015.2 1027.5

10,333.0 1038.9

10,664.4 1050.7

11,010.1 1062.6

11,370.8 1074.7

11,747.4 1087.0

12,140.8 1099.5

342.3

346.1

349.9

353.7

357.6

361.5

365.5

369.5

373.5

377.6

381.8

385.9

390.2

640.7

843.8

1054.2

1268.1

1481.3

1697.1

1914.8

2135.9

2360.7

2590.0

2824.6

3065.2

3312.5

905.8

910.5

915.2

919.5

923.3

926.7

929.8

932.6

935.1

937.4

939.4

941.2

942.9

313.8

296.1

278.1

262.0

247.5

234.4

222.6

212.1

202.6

194.0

186.3

179.4

173.2

592.1

614.4

637.1

657.5

675.8

692.3

707.2

720.5

732.6

743.4

753.1

761.8

769.7

0.042

0.056

0.069

0.083

0.096

0.110

0.124

0.137

0.151

0.166

0.180

0.195

0.211

602.3

793.2

991.0

1192.1

1392.5

1595.3

1799.9

2007.7

2219.0

2434.6

2655.1

2881.3

3113.7

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

623.0

825.4

1035.1

1248.4

1461.1

1676.3

1893.6

2114.3

2338.7

2567.7

2802.0

3042.3

3289.4

recycling will greatly promote enterprise motivation. In Fig. 9, the GHG emissions do not clearly change, increasing only from 905.8 kgCO2eq to 942.9 kgCO2eq. While the effective GHG emissions increase from 592.1 kgCO2eq to 769.7 kgCO2eq, and secondary GHG emissions decrease from 313.8 kgCO2eq to 173.2 kgCO2eq, both curves change obviously but trends are slowing down. To optimize the proportion of total GHG emissions, the effective GHG emissions of the whole paper recycling system increase by 65.4%–81.6%. The change in environmental effi­ ciency is also obvious. Finally, it is clearly shown in Fig. 8 that the disparity between comprehensive benefits and economic benefits is still not obvious, because waste paper recycling involves a lighter amount of pollution. In addition to that, for the carbon tax under the condition of low prices, it is difficult for corporate GHG emissions to be affected by enterprises that pay the carbon tax. Therefore, according to the “Environmental

Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China”, the carbon tax policy makers should not only consider the pollution equivalent of the enter­ prise, but also formulate different policies according to the specific conditions of waste recycling. And it is estimated that the price of the carbon tax should increase from 30 yuan/ton in 2017 to 211 yuan/ton in 2030 from the perspective of a fixed proportion of carbon waste recy­ cling revenue (Wang et al., 2019b), which is called variable carbon tax (VC).The results indicate that the waste paper recycling industry will develop rapidly and that economic and comprehensive benefits will increase rapidly. On the other hand, a fixed carbon tax (FC) will not regulate the paper recycling and paper industry, and an increase in the carbon tax should be seriously considered by policymakers.

Fig. 8. Comprehensive economic benefit curve in the case of integrating nonstandard recovery from 2018 to 2030. 10

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Journal of Environmental Management 255 (2020) 109859

Fig. 9. GHG emissions curve under the integration of nonstandard recovery from 2018 to 2030.

4.2. Benefit prediction of the waste paper recycling system under the scenario of regulating nonstandard recycling

constant and changing carbon tax price. At the same time, the line charts of the corresponding economic indicators, comprehensive benefit (Fig. 10) and GHG emissions (Fig. 11) are visualized with MATLAB. Combining the table and line chart, because of the NS for stan­ dardization, first, NS and S cost are considered in the present study. Regarding the cost of the waste paper recovery rate under the condition of a stable rise in China, the standard recovery rate also rise, but due to the domestic waste paper recycling of small and medium-sized enter­ prises and individual recycling vendors in a hostile environment, the nonstandard recycling rate in present study does not rise. In this sce­ nario, the standard recycling rate of waste paper rises from 10.6% to 23.1%. Although the increase is very obvious, present study has found that the market is still dominated by the nonstandard recycling rate of 38.8% and the acceptance rate of NS rises from 55.4% to 72.8%. NS dominates the domestic waste paper recycling market, though the

In addition to the standard recycling enterprises and traders, it is important to clamp down on methods, based on standard recycling en­ terprises and traders engaged in waste paper recycling, specify staff training, and take equipment support measures to improve the standard of the recycling waste paper acceptance rate, and this method is called “regulating nonstandard recycling”. Therefore, under the scenario in which China’s waste paper recovery maintains stable growth, the gov­ ernment will choose not to clamp down on the qualifications of standard recycling enterprises and individual traders, but to help the nonstandard recovery cases of 2018–2030, three kinds of economic indicators will be considered. Table 6 lists the changes in the three indicators from 2018 to 2030 under the scenario of a rising waste paper recycling rate and a

Table 6 Changes in various indicators in the case of regulating nonstandard recovery of waste paper from 2018 to 2030. Year

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

2026

2027

2028

2029

2030

Recovery rate Standard recovery rate Nonstandard recovery rate Acceptance rate Acceptance rate (nonstandard) Recycling price (yuan/ t) Sale price (yuan/t) Unit cost of standard recycling (yuan/t) Unit cost of nonstandard recycling (yuan/t) Economic benefit (yuan/t) GHG emission (kgCO2eq/t) Secondary GHG emission (kgCO2eq/ t) Normal GHG emission (kgCO2eq/t) variable carbon tax (yuan/t) Comprehensive benefits (yuan/t) fixed carbon tax (yuan/ t) Comprehensive benefits (yuan/t)

0.494 0.106 0.388

0.504 0.116 0.388

0.513 0.125 0.388

0.523 0.135 0.388

0.533 0.145 0.388

0.543 0.155 0.388

0.553 0.165 0.388

0.563 0.175 0.388

0.574 0.186 0.388

0.585 0.197 0.388

0.596 0.208 0.388

0.607 0.219 0.388

0.619 0.231 0.388

0.85 0.5542

0.85 0.5637

0.85 0.5740

0.85 0.5852

0.85 0.5971

0.85 0.6099

0.85 0.6237

0.85 0.6384

0.85 0.6541

0.85 0.6708

0.85 0.6887

0.85 0.7077

0.85 0.7279

2535.0

2558.5

2583.4

2609.8

2637.7

2667.0

2697.9

2730.2

2764.1

2799.6

2836.7

2875.5

2915.9

8357.9 966.4

8605.9 969.6

8866.4 984.1

9136.1 993.1

9417.4 1005.1

9710.1 1015.9

10,015.2 1027.5

10,333.0 1038.9

10,664.4 1050.7

11,010.1 1062.6

11,370.8 1074.7

11,747.4 1087.0

12,140.8 1099.5

966.4

969.6

984.1

993.1

1005.1

1015.9

1027.5

1038.9

1050.7

1062.6

1074.7

1087.0

1099.5

421.3

582.6

741.4

916.8

1100.2

1297.1

1506.0

1729.1

1966.6

2220.0

2490.2

2778.6

3086.4

909.7

912.1

914.5

917.0

919.6

922.2

924.8

927.5

930.3

933.1

935.9

938.8

941.8

299.1

289.9

280.6

271.1

261.5

251.6

241.6

231.4

221.0

210.3

199.5

188.5

177.3

610.6

622.2

633.9

645.9

658.1

670.6

683.2

696.2

709.3

722.7

736.4

750.3

764.5

0.030

0.038

0.049

0.060

0.072

0.084

0.098

0.112

0.127

0.143

0.160

0.178

0.197

396.0

547.7

696.9

861.8

1034.2

1219.3

1415.7

1625.3

1848.6

2086.8

2340.8

2611.9

2901.2

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

0.03

402.9

564.0

722.4

897.4

1080.4

1277.0

1485.5

1708.2

1945.3

2198.3

2468.1

2756.1

3063.4

11

M. Liu et al.

Journal of Environmental Management 255 (2020) 109859

Fig. 10. Comprehensive economic benefit curve for the regulation of nonstandard recovery from 2018 to 2030.

Fig. 11. GHG emissions curve under the regulation of nonstandard recovery from 2018 to 2030.

increase in the acceptance rate of the whole waste paper recycling sys­ tem’s economic and comprehensive benefits is very obvious. The eco­ nomic benefits from 2018 to 2030 rise to 3086.4 yuan/ton. At the same time, the GHG emissions increase from 909.1 kgCO2eq to 941.8 kgCO2eq; the change is still not obvious. As is shown in Fig. 11, the normal GHG emissions increase from 610.6 kgCO2eq to 764.5 kgCO2eq, up 25.4%. The corresponding secondary GHG emissions decrease by 121.8 kgCO2eq to 177.3 kgCO2eq by 2030. The effective GHG emissions increase from 67.1% to 81.2% of total GHG emissions. Finally, under the basis of variable carbon tax, the carbon tax price estimated in the present study increases from 30 yuan/ton to 197 yuan/ton, which also reflects that the space for increasing the carbon tax is enormous. Enterprises should respond to the call of national energy conservation and emission reduction while regulating their own recycling channel behavior and perform well with regard to low-carbon activities.

a year-on-year increase of 3% (Guo, 2018; Wang, 2018). Clearly, China’s waste paper will further increase its share in the domestic waste paper market in the future. However, China’s domestic approaches to waste recycling are still nonstandard recycling vendors and enterprises (Zhang and Liu, 2012), which leads to a low recycling efficiency of renewable resources and other environmental problems. From 2008 to 2017, China’s waste paper recovery rate rose from 39.4% to nearly 50%. It shows that with regard to waste paper, as a raw material, the demand for recycled paper in China still exists. With the further decline in the amount of imported waste paper, there will be a gap in China’s demand for waste paper in the next few years (Sevign� e-Itoiz et al., 2015). At the same time, China’s waste paper recycling rate reached a peak of 73.4% in 2013 and gradually decreased to 70.6% in 2017 (Guo, 2018), which indicates that the cost of recycling waste paper, the imbalance between supply and demand, and other factors will have an impact on waste paper recycling. It is impossible to achieve the goal of standardized recycling of waste paper in China in one move. However, in the context of national policies and guidelines on resource conservation and envi­ ronmental protection, the elimination of small-scale and backward NS vendors and enterprises is an inevitable trend (Steuer et al., 2018; Tong et al., 2018). Therefore, the transformation of waste paper recycling from nonstandard to standard and the leading role of standard recycling in China’s waste paper recycling market will be gradually realized in the future.

5. Discussion 5.1. Recovered paper flows In recent years, as China’s domestic waste paper market has gradu­ ally saturated, the amount of recycled waste paper has not changed much. However, the recycling routes and the market structure of waste paper are gradually changing. In the first trimester of 2018, China’s waste paper import volume decreased by 3.93 million t, showing a yearon-year reduction of 49.5%, while China’s waste paper pulping showed

12

M. Liu et al.

Journal of Environmental Management 255 (2020) 109859

5.2. Greenhouse gas emissions and carbon tax under life cycle analysis

5.3. The integration and regulation of nonstandard recovery

In present study, LCA is used to obtain the GHG emissions generated in China’s waste paper recycling system. The accounting process is divided into GHG emissions generated by paper making and secondary GHG emissions generated by recycling and impurities treatment. The common literature conducts only qualitative LCA-related research on waste paper recycling, and the establishment of relevant structural frameworks do not calculate specific results (Yang et al., 2012; Zhang and Liu, 2012; Lopes et al., 2003). In the more common literature on research resources related to LCA and waste recovery systems, waste recovery is superior to other traditional waste treatment methods, such as dismantling, landfill and incineration, from the perspective of the economy and the environment (Dunuwila et al., 2018; Merrild et al., 2008; Qiao et al., 2019; Dong et al., 2018). However, regarding Chinese waste paper recycling, the significance of comparing waste recycling with landfill and incineration is limited. On one hand, waste paper recycling at least brings environmental benefits, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, the landfill of waste paper is difficult to generate benefits and the fly ash generated in the incinera­ tion does not widely come to reuse in China because of the limitation of various conditions (Luo et al., 2019). On the other hand, the situation of China’s waste paper recycling is complex, and the fundamental resis­ tance stemming from the fact that the standard recycling system is difficult to form leads to the NS of individual traders and the insufficient participation of residents. Therefore, present study demonstrates that standard waste paper recycling can effectively reduce carbon emissions from the perspective of recycling. Global GHG emissions are derived from the distribution of the manufacturing industry, and if paper making enterprises choose waste paper as raw materials based on environmental considerations, the closed loop of pulp and paper making is bound to be the best choice for the environment (Mirkovic et al., 2015; Ouda et al., 2017; Xiu et al., 2018). However, economic and market factors have an impact on the choice of paper enterprises, and it is still a complex problem to balance the economic benefits of waste paper recycling and the GHG emissions to the environment. Tam et al. (2019b) has reviewed the relationship between sustainable legislation systems and GHG emissions trends in ten major GHG emitting countries in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and found that mandatory or punitive regulations do not significantly reduce GHG emissions. Specifically, the effective means of reducing GHG emissions is to reduce economic production activities which would hinder the eco­ nomic development of a country. Carbon tax is truly one of the most cost-effective means of emission reduction, though it is a mandatory regulation. In particular, Zhang et al. (2019) evaluated the overall economy of China from 2015 to 2030, and their research shows that carbon emissions will slow down much faster than Gross Domestic Product (GDP) after carbon tax implementation. When the tax price is 200 yuan/ton, the emission elasticity is relatively high, approximately 3.41, which means that carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by approximately 3.41 percent, while GDP will be reduced by 1 percent. Xie et al. (2018) studied the relationship between the industrial economy and carbon tax in Chongqing and reached a similar conclusion: the loss rate of carbon tax based on GDP was 1.54%–2.5%. Thus, an increase in the carbon tax will definitely reduce the income of enterprises slightly, but it will lead to a more obvious emission reduction effect, which is undoubtedly a good finding for Chinese environmental policy makers. In addition, carbon tax can not only bring approximately 62.5% of the environmental emission reduction income but also lead to an in­ crease in general welfare; however, it can also cause a large amount of unemployment in some industries, especially manufacturing industries (Wesseh and Lin, 2018). Carbon tax cannot prevent the contradiction between the benefits of enterprises and the environment; thus, in the long run, the development of cleaner new energy is a better choice.

The directions are discussed for improving China’s waste paper recycling system from the perspective of the economy and the envi­ ronment, and it combines the effects of both with the carbon tax. Therefore, policy makers should consider that the economy and the environment are interrelated and that this is true throughout the whole life cycle of paper and cardboard. The method proposed in present study can be used to evaluate the standardized trend of waste paper recycling in different situations in the future. However, in the same way of normalization, different treatment methods of nonstandard recycling paths will produce different results (Kian-Ghee et al., 2019). For example, integrating and regulating nonstandard recycling vendors will generate considerable economic benefits and a large carbon emission reduction, but the latter standardization process is slow. Fig. 12 shows the change in the standard recovery rate in two scenarios (blue line represents integrating nonstandard recycling, red line represents regu­ lating nonstandard recycling), NS still accounts for 62.7% of the market in 2030 and dominates the market. Therefore, the latter is not suitable for the sustainable development of China because it is difficult to ach­ ieve in terms of technology and capital and through possibility of implementing measures (Zhang et al., 2016). Even for standard paper enterprises and sorting centers, improving the recycling efficiency and eliminating the secondary pollution in the recycling process are still the direction of their efforts. They can also cultivate their own enterprise culture, for example, by encouraging enterprise staff to master more modest environmental recovery technologies; however, for individual traders who focus on nonstandard recovery, this is not a possibility. Furthermore, the current recycling in China is still mainly door-to-door recycling. In the future, the new online recycling mode that combines an app and the internet and intelligent collection that combines human-computer interaction will become new possibilities. The conve­ nience of online recycling will greatly improve residents’ enthusiasm for recycling, which, in turn, will improve the overall efficiency of the waste recycling system (Wang et al., 2019a; Xue et al., 2019). 6. Conclusions In present study, the life cycle framework of Chinese paper and board, including the waste paper recycling system, has been established through the material flow analysis. And the material flow chart of Chi­ nese waste paper is established according to this framework, which intuitively shows that the proportion of nonstandard waste paper recy­ cling is too high. Then, models of economic benefit, environmental impacts and comprehensive benefit of waste paper recycling has been established. Through calculation, it has concluded that China’s nonstandard waste paper recycling causes a large amount of resource waste and produces a large number of secondary GHG emissions to the environment. Then the sensitivity analysis of three main parameters affecting the recovery of waste paper is carried out. The results show that both the recovery rate and the acceptance rate of nonstandard re­ covery waste paper can greatly improve the economic benefits of the system and the GHG emission structure. Besides, the increase in the distribution rate will reduce the economic benefits of waste paper recycling. In the end, the present study has compared the changes in economic benefits and GHG emissions of China’s waste paper recycling system from 2018 to 2030 under different scenarios of integrating and regulating nonstandard recycling, and found that both approaches can rapidly improve the benefits of waste paper recycling system and significantly improve the GHG emission structure of the system. Com­ bined with the carbon tax, the gap between economic benefits and comprehensive benefits of the system is small. This shows that the current carbon tax price in China is obviously too low. The paper recycling system in China can be improved obviously by integrating or regulating nonstandard recycling. however, the cost and wasted resources of the latter are inestimable (Ma et al., 2019; Schmidt 13

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Journal of Environmental Management 255 (2020) 109859

Fig. 12. Changes of the standard recovery rate from 2018 to 2030.

Declaration of competing interest

et al., 2019; Steuer et al., 2018). Therefore, integrating or banning in­ dividual traders or enterprises involved in nonstandard recycling is an appropriate choice, and Chinese policymakers seem to be thinking the same (Niu 2018). Therefore, on the one hand, the country urgently needs to improve its laws and regulations for waste paper recycling and strengthen scientific and technological research and development. Ac­ cording to the regulations of the waste paper recycling industry, the focus is on integrating nonstandard recycling enterprises and individual vendors to improve the efficiency of waste paper recycling and to eliminate the secondary pollution caused by waste paper in the recycling process (Schüch et al., 2016; Xiao et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2016). On the other hand, the government needs to perform well in the classifi­ cation of waste paper to strengthen the supervision of the entire recy­ cling system, and to contribute to the waste paper recycling system, the government should provide policy support. It is predicted that the eco­ nomic benefits of waste paper recycling will be quite high after a certain period of time; thus, policymakers can consider giving enterprises appropriate subsidies during paper recycling system construction. When the system is mature, eliminating subsidies will allow enterprises to rely on considerable benefits to maintain their survival and development (Liu et al., 2018). At the same time, it is also necessary for policymakers to carefully consider how to formulate appropriate tax policies to regulate benefits and costs at all levels in the supply chain (Wang et al., 2019b). Currently, China’s tax policies on the environment are just beginning to be used; thus, the price is relatively low. The low carbon tax price reflects the cautious attitude of Chinese policy makers and in­ dicates that setting the carbon tax price is complicated (Coulomb and Henriet, 2018; Zhang et al., 2019). Present study research on China’s waste paper recycling system from a macro perspective and proposes suggestions on integrating nonstan­ dard recycling. This direction of waste paper recycling under the na­ tional policy of resource conservation and emission reduction is undoubtedly correct (Lin and Zhu, 2019). However, in terms of how to regulate the waste paper recycling market, expand the responsibility of enterprises as producers and mobilize the enthusiasm of residents for recycling, as well as what kind of waste paper recycling policy should be implemented by the government to coordinate the supply chain of waste paper recycling system, these issues require further exploration.

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Author contributions Dr. Liu and Tan contributed the central idea, analysed most of the data, and wrote the initial draft of the paper. The remaining authors contributed to refining the ideas, carrying out additional analyses and finalizing this paper. All authors equally contributed to the writing of the paper.

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