Asia Symbol: To create an industry benchmark for industrial upgrading, technological progress and green development
In February 2024, Asia Symbol (Shandong) Pulp & Paper Co., Ltd. received a letter of appreciation from the Rizhao Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment. The letter expressed his gratitude to Asia Symbol for its contributions to actively implementing the strategy of "ecological city", conscientiously organizing the publicity work of ecological civilization construction, widely publicizing the concept of environmental protection to the public, promoting the green, low-carbon and high-quality development of the city, and helping the construction of ecological sunshine.
This is not the only piece of good news that I have received recently. Asia Symbol won the titles of "Environmental Education Science Base" and "Green Reporter Research Base" at the 8th Environmental Education Exchange Conference with the theme of "Theory and Practice of Environmental Education" sponsored by Environmental Education Magazine, and was ranked among the top 10 Chinese enterprises in the "Double Carbon" Action Force at the first "Double Carbon" Activist Conference initiated by Southern Weekly.
Either the enterprise eliminates pollution, or the pollution eliminates the enterprise. In Asia Symbol, environmental protection has always been the "lifeline" of enterprise development.
Green and environmental protection, starting from the doll
development, actively fulfill social responsibilities, and devote themselves to various ecological civilization publicity and education activities. Through the "please come in" method, the company took the initiative to open the factory, combined environmental protection education, industry characteristics, and popular science research, set up a special environmental protection science exhibition hall, research route, established a team of volunteer docents, and invited all walks of life to visit the company.
At present, the company has become a social practice base for hundreds of universities, middle schools and primary schools, receiving tens of thousands of visits every year, and has become a provincial environmental education base, a provincial top ten environmental protection facilities open unit, a provincial popular science education base, a provincial industrial tourism demonstration site, etc. Asia Symbol commentator Zeng Yanan told reporters with pride.
In addition to "please come in", Asia Symbol also insists on "going out" and unites all walks of life to carry out various environmental protection education activities. Combined with their own professional advantages, the "I am a little papermaker" environmental protection practice class specially designed for teenagers, this class can not only allow children to systematically understand the history of papermaking, but also use "waste paper" to make "new paper", and experience the magical process of resource recycling. At the same time, in the process of carrying out the activity, Asia Symbol's volunteers will also intersperse the promotion of environmental protection concepts and environmental protection tips, and adopt interactive ways of asking and answering questions to inspire children, stimulate enthusiasm and stimulate thinking.
On November 21 last year, an extracurricular practice class of "I am a little papermaker" walked into Asia Senbo Hope Primary School in Sangyuan Town, Juxian County. Under the guidance of volunteer teachers, the children carefully beat, pulp, press, shape, and dry, and soon turned waste paper into new paper. The children drew on the new paper they had made, wrote their names, and showed their work to the volunteer teachers, smiling from ear to ear.
"This is the first time I have made new paper from waste paper, it turns out that waste paper can really be recycled, and I will learn to save paper and do a good job of garbage sorting in the future." Yuan Xiaohan, a fifth-grade student, said with a serious face.
According to reports, the volunteer service activity of "I am a little papermaker" is one of the important measures for Asia Symbol to participate in education, support education, "paper" civilization, and ecological environmental protection. Up to now, "I am a Little Papermaker" has been carried out for 12 years, with a total of 148 phases, and has entered more than 30 schools, benefiting more than 10,000 teenagers. The project has been widely recognized by all walks of life, and has been displayed by the National Environmental Publicity and Education Demonstration Base, becoming a part of the "Green Journey", a key environmental protection publicity and education project in Rizhao City, and being rated as the "Best Public Participation Case" by the Shandong Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment.
"The development of the 'I am a little papermaker' activity not only exercised the children's hands-on practical ability, but most importantly, moved the 'resource recycling process' into the classroom, integrated the subject penetration and environmental protection education, and focused on cultivating students' environmental awareness from an early age, advocating a low-carbon and environmentally friendly lifestyle, in order to have a more profound and sustainable impact on children, families and society. Zhou Wenlong, president of the Asia-Pacific Symbol Volunteer Association, said.
Ecological education to create a green future
The sunshine element is integrated with the green of the mountains and seas, and the low-carbon travel by bicycle is surrounded by flowers, animals and plants...... A series of "green" works appear in front of you. This is the 16th "Asia Symbol Cup" city-wide children's environmental protection painting contest held last year, some of the more than 7,000 entries in the excellent paintings, the content is different, but each stroke reveals the children's love and pursuit of ecological beauty and environmental protection.
"The theme of this environmental painting contest is green life, I created this painting combined with the development of Rizhao green ecology, the work into the Rizhao waves, Rizhao traffic, black pottery, sunbirds and other elements, I hope that green development is not only a propaganda slogan, but also a deeply rooted action, I hope everyone to practice green ecological development together. Jiao Zihui, a student at Rizhao No. 1 Middle School, said.
It is understood that Asia Symbol has jointly held the city's children's environmental protection painting competition for 16 consecutive years, with more than 500,000 children directly benefiting, becoming the city's longest-lasting, widest range of influence, and the largest number of participants in the city's environmental protection public welfare activities.
In addition, Asia Symbol has also planned and carried out a variety of environmental protection activities such as "Green Bookshelves into Campus", "Colorful Creatures, Beautiful Rizhao" Environmental Science Theme Painting and Photography Contest, "Environmental Protection Lecture Hall", "Mobile Exhibition Hall", "Donation of Bio-organic Fertilizer to Help the Development of Green Agriculture" and other colorful environmental protection activities. At the same time, it actively participates in and supports various environmental protection publicity and education activities in Rizhao City, from "thousands of towns and thousands of greens" to "protecting water sources", from "making the old easy to green" to "carbon benefits Rizhao", etc., all of which have left a beautiful figure of Asia Symbol to help ecological civilization education.
While actively participating in various environmental protection undertakings, Asia Symbol has worked hard to improve its environmental protection skills, actively benchmarked against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, formulated and released Asia Symbol 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and is committed to providing sustainable solutions to the environmental and social challenges faced by the paper industry.
"Under the guidance of sustainable development goals, with the help and support of the ecological and environmental protection department, the company's environmental protection level is improving day by day, and up to now, the environmental protection investment has exceeded 7 billion yuan, becoming a benchmark enterprise for industrial upgrading, technological progress and green development in the pulp and paper industry. The company is also the world's first pulp and paper enterprise to reuse urban reclaimed water, and the world's first pulp and paper enterprise to launch a dual-power backup combustion system for odor gas, and has been rated as a 'national green factory'. Chen Dong, senior manager of safety and environmental protection at Asia Symbol, said.
Dig deep into the potential and "eat and squeeze out" the raw materials
On March 12, Liu Xiangwen, the DCS operator of the alkali furnace in the pulping production line of Asia Symbol, sat in front of the control computer in the central control room and monitored that the black liquor generated during the pulping process was continuously transported to the evaporation section at a flow rate of 550 liters per second. After evaporation and concentration, the dilute black liquor reaches a concentration of about 80% and is used for alkali furnace combustion.
Liu Xiangwen introduced, PL12 alkali furnace daily black liquor combustion capacity of 6,700 tons, the maximum combustion capacity of up to 7,500 tons, the alkali furnace can produce 22,000 tons of high-pressure steam per day, the high-pressure steam generated directly to the turbine generator, and finally converted into the factory needs of low-pressure steam and electricity, can produce 4,000 tons of medium-pressure steam per day, 18,000 tons of low-pressure steam, and 3,100 MWh of electricity at the same time.
"The burning of black liquor in the alkali furnace not only avoids the environmental pollution caused by the discharge of black liquor, but also turns black liquor into treasure, provides electricity and heat energy for the factory, and realizes resource recycling. Liu Xiangwen said.
How to tap the potential of resources and "eat and squeeze out" raw materials has been thinking and exploring Asia Symbol for many years.
Asia Symbol adheres to the "3R" principle of circular economy, and makes full use of biomass waste such as black liquor and wood chips generated in the production process to generate steam and power generation, and 83.4% of the plant's energy will come from these wastes in 2023. Similarly, Asia Symbol's distributed photovoltaic power plant is another major achievement of the company in low-carbon development.
The distributed photovoltaic project makes full use of the roof area of the existing 9 workshops, and after the project is connected to the grid for power generation, it can provide enterprises with an average of about 5.6 million kWh of green electricity per year, and all of them can be consumed independently, which can effectively reduce the electricity cost of enterprises. Compared with coal-fired power with the same power generation, the project can save about 1,690 tons of standard coal, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 4,637 tons, sulfur dioxide emissions by about 0.57 tons, nitrogen oxide emissions by about 0.85 tons, and soot emissions by about 0.123 tons per year after being put into operation, which has a very significant environmental protection effect.
While achieving its own good development, the company also attaches great importance to cooperating with the local area, the industry and the entire value chain to jointly achieve green, low-carbon and high-quality development, creating the first white cardboard zero-carbon product in China, and innovatively implementing the in-depth flue gas treatment and waste heat heating integration project, which can meet the heating needs of 6 million square meters of urban residents in Rizhao Economic and Technological Development Zone, and reduce regional carbon emissions by 382,500 tons per year.
The more you give, the more you have. Under the guidance of "dual carbon" and corporate sustainable development goals, Asia Symbol is now actively innovating in terms of new materials, new energy, new equipment, new processes and new technologies, taking multiple measures to promote the green, low-carbon and high-quality development of enterprises, and co-building, symbiosis, win-win and sharing with cities.
