Alternative policy assessment for water pollution control in China's pulp and paper industry

The pulp and paper industry is the most important industrial sector for water pollution control in China. The current paper develops a technology-based model to assess alternative water pollution reduction policies in the pulp and paper industry up to 2020. Five policy scenarios are established to represent measures of raw material substitution, eliminating backward small-sized capacities, promoting cleaner technologies, advancing end-of-pipe treatment technologies and the integration of all these policies. Emission amounts of wastewater, chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonia nitrogen (NH4-N) and absorbable organic halides (AOX) under different scenarios and corresponding economic costs are calculated. Among all individual policy measures, production capacity replacement has the best pollution reduction effect and the largest capital investment demand. Promoting cleaner technology can bring more economic benefits with less investment because of its by-effects of material and energy saving. Although raw material substitution is a basic strategy in China's paper industry, it does not show very significant pollution reduction effect on its own. Joint implementation of different policies is necessary in order to decrease gross emission amounts when total output keeps growing. The water pollution emission reduction target proposed in the development plan of China's paper industry, i.e. 10–12% reduction of COD and NH4-N in 2015 based on 2010 level, can be fulfilled through integrated policy measures.

► A bottom-up technology-based model for China's pulp and paper industry is developed.
► Major water pollution reduction policies in the pulp and paper industry are represented by 5 scenarios.
► Emission reduction effects on wastewater, COD, NH4-N and AOX and corresponding economic costs of alternative policy measures are evaluated.