In recent years, China has seen a surge in new pulp-molding projects, and the production capacity of various products continues to ramp up, steadily enhancing the country’s pulp-molding supply capabilities. According to the Prospective Industry Research Institute, China's pulp molding capacity will be about 1.79 million tons in 2022, accounting for 40.5 of the global capacity (4.42 million tons); the production scale will exceed 1.5 million tons, reaching 1.57 million tons.

Disposable tableware is also an important track for the development of paper and plastic packaging industry. In 2022, the global disposable tableware production capacity will be 750000 tons, accounting for 17% of the total global pulp molding production capacity. China's disposable tableware production capacity is 510000 tons, accounting for 29%.

With the gradual upgrading of the "plastic ban", the voice of "replacing plastic with paper" is getting louder and louder, and many enterprises have accelerated the layout of disposable tableware business. In 2022, Zhongxin's production capacity and production market share will top the industry, with 21.6 and 18.2 respectively. This was followed by Shaoneng, with 21.2 and 9.8 market shares respectively. Jinsheng Environmental Protection came in third, with 10.0 and 8.0 market shares respectively. Guangxi Fusipai and Far East Zhonggan ranked fourth and fifth respectively in terms of production capacity and market share. In addition, Shandong Quanlin Straw, Keyi Environmental Protection, Shabot (Zhongshan) and other companies have relatively large production capacity and output scale of disposable tableware.

However, how to balance the environmental protection and high barrier properties of paper-plastic tableware has always been a pain point in the paper tableware industry. At present, the common disposable paper tableware on the market either uses film to solve the barrier problem or uses coating to achieve a certain barrier effect, but the two cannot have both.

BASF's high-performance water-based barrier-coated paper cups can be repulped and recycled.

The recycling problem of disposable paper cups may have a new solution this year. BASF has introduced a high-performance water-based barrier coating that uses environmentally friendly food-accessible water-based emulsions instead of plastic films, and uses water-based film-forming dispersions Joncryl®HPB is a heat-sealable liquid barrier coating, which can achieve the same function of waterproof, sugar-proof and oil-proof. After use, the paper cup can be directly broken on the existing equipment and technology, then re-beaten into pulp, and then made into other paper products.

This technology helps to solve the problem of poor barrier of paper-plastic tableware, and further promotes the development direction of paper instead of plastic.