China's new recycled pulp standard takes effect as Jingxing's recycled board sales jump 431%
China's revised national standard for recycled pulp took effect on 1 October 2026, setting heavy-metal and microbial limits and separating dry- and wet-process routes to keep mislabelled waste paper out at customs. Jingxing Paper, which has run an 800,000 tonne/year wet-process recycled pulp board plant in Malaysia since 2023, reported first-half 2026 recycled pulp board revenue of USD 61m (CNY 410m), up 431% year on year. The company attributed that growth to earlier tightening of import supervision, which raised mills' willingness to buy compliant wet-process board.
Why this mattersTighter customs standards raise the compliance bar for recycled fibre entering China, favouring integrated producers with overseas wet-process capacity over simple waste-shredding importers.
- The revised Chinese national standard for recycled pulp took effect on 1 October 2026, setting heavy-metal limits tested by ICP-MS and microbial limits for pathogens including Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus
- The standard excludes simply shredded and baled waste paper from the definition of recycled pulp, giving customs a technical test for rejecting consignments
- China has banned solid waste imports outright since 1 January 2021
- Recycled pulp accounted for 55% of China's total pulp consumption in 2024
- Jingxing Paper's Malaysian wet-process recycled pulp board plant, capacity 800,000 tonnes a year, started up in 2023
- Jingxing Paper's H1 2026 revenue was USD 472m (CNY 3.161bn), up 20.22%, including recycled pulp board revenue of USD 61m (CNY 410m), up 431.12%