30-Second Overview: Taiwan's paper industry did not begin with a forest, but with the sugarcane bagasse left over after sugar mills finished pressing sugarcane. In 1917, researchers began seeking methods to make paper from bagasse. In 1935, the predecessor of the Zhongxing Paper Mill in Yilan began pulping using bagasse and Miscanthus sinensis (Chinese silvergrass), becoming a large-scale factory. After the war, the paper industry was nationalized, received US aid, and supplied newsprint; later, it transformed under the pressures of imported wood pulp, recycled paper, and digitalization. The stone paper that has emerged in recent years mixes calcium carbonate mineral powder with resin to create a new material between paper and plastic. It does not need to be written as an environmental miracle that replaces everything, but it allows us to see how Taiwan's paper industry continues to navigate the constraints of raw materials, water usage, recycling, and pollution. Reading a sheet of paper today is actually reading how an island handles its resource limitations.
In 1917, Taiwan did not yet have the elegant phrase "modernization of the paper industry." The more concrete problem at the time was: sugar mills left behind large amounts of bagasse every day; besides burning it, could these fibers be turned into useful paper? The Japanese chemical industry and papermaking sector invested in research, and the Taiwan Governor-General's Office selectively provided subsidies. It took about fifteen years before viable technology was found in the early 1930s. 1 The starting point of this path was not logging, but renaming the surplus of another industry into a raw material.
This conversion looks environmentally friendly, but in reality, it was first a tug-of-war over industrial interests. Bagasse could simultaneously serve as boiler fuel, compost material, and pig feed. After the war, Taiwan Sugar Corporation (Taiwan Sugar) needed it to maintain its own production, while paper mills needed cheap and stable bagasse to reduce costs. In the 1950s, supply conflicts between Taiwan Sugar and the paper industry made it difficult for Taiwan's paper mills to compete with foreign wood pulp paper mills using bagasse. 2
📝 Curator's Note: The first difficulty for Taiwan's paper industry was not "how to make paper," but that the same bagasse was needed by three industries simultaneously.
Yilan's Paper Mill: Turning Byproducts into the Scale of a City
In 1935, the predecessor of the Zhongxing Paper Mill in Wujie, Yilan, "Taiwan Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha" (Taiwan Industrial Corporation), was established. The factory began pulping using bagasse and Miscanthus sinensis, later producing newsprint, toilet paper, Dönglin paper, and industrial paper. According to historical records from the Yilan County Government, it was once Taiwan's largest paper mill, with production volume reaching the forefront of Southeast Asia. 3 Today, when people walk into the Zhongxing Cultural and Creative Park, they see warehouses, chimneys, and ruins of factory buildings. In the era when the factory was still operating, these structures were the metronomes for workers commuting, paper rolls shipping out, and local life.
The fate of the paper mill was quickly rewritten by war. In 1937, US forces bombed Yilan; the boiler room, cooking room, bleaching factory, laboratory, and warehouses were all damaged. After the war, the government merged five Japanese-era papermaking companies into the Taiwan Paper Industry Company, which included five paper mills in Luodong, Dadu, Xinying, Shilin, and Fengshan, and also took over the forest farm at Lin Tian Mountain. 4 A paper mill here represents not just a technology, but an entire system of state asset reception, raw material allocation, and industrial geography arrangement.
Starting in 1953, papermaking was incorporated into the four-year economic construction plan aligned with US aid. The Luodong plant obtained equipment subsidies of over $800,000 and over $150,000 successively, purchasing new papermaking machinery and constructing finished product warehouses. In 1958, the Taiwan Paper Industry Company decided to split into separate factories and operations. The following year, Zhongxing Paper Industry was officially established, becoming the only publicly owned enterprise in Taiwan's paper industry. 4
This history is often condensed into "US aid brought industrialization." But in the paper mill, US aid was not an abstract international assistance; it was a new paper machine, a warehouse, and a group of people who had to learn to operate and maintain it. As paper shipped out from the factory, the state was also learning how to manage an industry that required forests, machinery, energy, and markets.
The paper mill was also a site of local politics. Data compiled by the Lanyang Museum records that in 1952, employees of the Zhongxing Paper Mill were implicated in the Taiwan Democratic Autonomous League case due to participating in a reading group. The following year, several people were sentenced by military courts, while local interviews left behind the memory that "some people just attended a reading group." 4 This material does not romanticize the paper mill as a simple labor community, but reminds us: industrial sites also bear the pressure of state power, ideological control, and local society.
From an annual output of 14,000 metric tons in 1947 to export volumes increasing from 44,000 metric tons to 70,000 metric tons in the 1960s, the Taiwan Paper Industry Association's historical records write this period as industrial expansion. After 1971, export-oriented industries needed corrugated cardboard boxes, kraft paper bags, and white cardboard; paper mills and paper container industries began jointly handling waste paper quality, import allocation, and product standards. 5 The growth of the paper industry was therefore not completed by a single paper machine, but grew up alongside bananas, ready-made clothing, the shoe industry, fertilizers, and export packaging.
Why Self-Sufficiency in Newsprint Might Also Become a Loss
After the war, the government viewed self-sufficiency in newsprint as part of national construction. In 1975, Zhongxing Paper Industry installed a waste paper de-inking machine, attempting to reduce costs and expand raw material sources. In 1979, a new paper machine completed its trial run, with an annual output reaching 50,000 metric tons; together with existing capacity, it was sufficient to supply the domestic newspaper industry. 4 This story has a turning point that is not easily seen: increased output does not mean the factory can make a profit.
Zhongxing Paper Industry's newsprint selling price was regulated by policy, once falling below cost. The dumping of imported newsprint and the unsold domestic newsprint also caused the company to incur losses starting in the 1970s. 4 The more the paper mill worked to complete the task of "supplying the domestic newspaper industry," the more likely it was to bear the contradictions between market prices, state policy, and corporate accounting on its own.
📝 Curator's Note: A factory can complete the tasks assigned by the state, but it does not necessarily complete the arithmetic of the enterprise. The price of paper is never determined solely by the paper machine.
Zhongxing Paper Industry later underwent privatization. In 2001, employees pooled funds to establish Xingzhong Paper Industry, bidding for some machinery and leasing some land to continue production. This transition, where employees took over the factory, means that "industrial heritage" is not just the government preserving an old factory building, but also includes how the people who once worked inside it try to extend their workplace into the next system. 4
These changes also altered the meaning of "paper mill workers." Early paper mills needed to handle wood, bagasse, and chemical pulp; workers had to coordinate between different stages such as cooking, bleaching, beating, papermaking, and drying. Later, with the addition of waste paper de-inking and high-speed paper machines, the focus of work shifted to quality control, equipment maintenance, and raw material specifications.
The more uniform the surface of the paper appears, the more measurement, standards, and experience are required behind the scenes. The Taiwan Paper Industry Association records that after 1986, the production volume of paper and cardboard increased significantly over ten years; the industry also cooperated with the government to establish national standards for paper products. This is precisely the process of industry moving from "being able to make it" to "stably making it." 5 This standardization also binds the paper industry more tightly to downstream users: printing plants need stable paper size and ink absorption; paper container factories need corrugated paper that can withstand transportation stacking; household paper needs to find a balance between softness, water absorption, and cost. Paper does not enter society only after leaving the factory. At the moment its specifications are set, it already presupposes how the next industry will work. 6
Local industries are not unilaterally transformed by paper mills. Yilan's paper mills needed transportation, timber, warehousing, repair, and worker housing; Puli's handmade paper was connected to water sources, agricultural fibers, calligraphy and painting markets, and later, tourists. When factories stopped production or shrank, affected was not just the company's revenue. Local place names, work rhythms, and family incomes that were once taken for granted would also lose their attachment. This is why the preservation of the Zhongxing Paper Mill cannot look only at the architectural exterior, and the preservation of Puli handmade paper cannot only display finished products: both must bring back the production relations.
In 2014, the Yilan County Government took over part of the old factory area. After renovation and revitalization, it became the Zhongxing Cultural and Creative Park. The paper mill no longer has the primary function of mass-producing paper, but begins producing exhibitions, handcrafts, images, and local memories. 3 The second life of industrial sites does not whitewash the first history. The park can be understood precisely because the chimneys and warehouses still point to a factory that once consumed energy, processed raw materials, and paid workers.
Puli's Water: Making Paper at Another Speed
If Yilan's paper mill represents large-scale industry, Puli's handmade paper is another path. The National Cultural Heritage Network lists Puli handmade paper as traditional craftsmanship, recording that its context began in the late Qing Dynasty, its existing technology was influenced by Japanese papermaking techniques, and it developed its own processes and characteristics locally. 7
The process of a sheet of handmade paper is slow: raw materials must be processed and beaten; the paper frame swings left and right in the pulp tank; after the paper forms, it must be pressed for water, separated, and brushed onto iron drying plates. The water-pressed paper resembles tofu, called "paper tofu." The master then uses a paper lifting stick to separate each wet sheet, letting it adhere to the iron plate to dry. 7 These actions were not eliminated by large paper machines; instead, they became the most important knowledge of Puli handmade paper.
Puli's advantage is not just the three words "good water quality." Official registration reasons point out that around the 60th year of the Republic of China (1970s), Puli had about 50 papermaking operators, serving as an important supply base for Japanese and Southeast Asian handmade calligraphy and painting paper. 7 A Taiwan Panorama report records that in the 1970s, Puli handmade paper once had over 50 factories, mainly exporting to Japan and South Korea. By the 1990s, due to low-price competition and a decrease in the number of people learning calligraphy in Taiwan, factories gradually withdrew. 8
Guangxing Paper Mill is one of the few remaining examples. In 1965, Huang Yao-dong established Guangxing Paper Mill on the Ailan Terrace. His son, Huang Huan-zhang, took over during the industry's decline. Instead of treating paper merely as a commodity for mass shipment, he directly sent sample paper to calligraphers and painters, asking users to tell him the pros and cons of the paper. Later, the paper mill produced fiber paper from bamboo shoots, calligraphy and painting paper of different textures, and paper with product pedigrees, also turning the factory into a tourist factory. 8
This is the survival equation differentiating handmade paper from large paper mills. Large paper mills must handle raw materials, machinery, energy, and output per ton. Handmade paper mills put masters, paper formulas, user feedback, and place experience into the product. It did not return to pre-industrialization; instead, within the market gaps left by industrialization, it redefined the value of "good paper."
This also explains why Puli handmade paper is worth listing as cultural heritage, not just a local specialty. Official registration data places its value in two things: the technology has a traceable historical context, and it significantly reflects local life characteristics. When paper returns from the factory's output table to the master's hand, water, fibers, brushing paper, and judgment are no longer small steps in the process, but local knowledge itself. 7
Many Forests, Why Still Rely on Imports for Pulp
Another counter-intuitive aspect of Taiwan's paper industry is that a high forest coverage rate does not equal self-sufficiency in papermaking timber. Modern industry data shows that Taiwan's self-sufficiency rate for wood chips needed for papermaking is only 0.5%. About 70% of the pulp used in the domestic paper industry comes from waste paper, pure wood pulp accounts for about 30%, and the portion of domestic pulp supply that is insufficient still relies on imports. 6 This connects Taiwan's paper industry in two directions: one end is pulp sources like Chile, Brazil, and Canada; the other end is the waste paper that Taiwan classifies, recycles, and hands to paper mills every day.
Paper is not a single product. Pulp can enter cultural paper, industrial paper, household paper, and packaging paper. Cardboard boxes, toilet paper, writing paper, and special paper each face different demands and prices. The papermaking process requires pulping, beating, blending, screening, followed by pressing, drying, coating, and winding. It uses large amounts of water, energy, and chemicals; it is not automatically environmentally friendly just by attaching a "paper" label. 6
The Taiwan Paper Industry Association views the 1973 oil crisis as a significant turning point: pulp prices rose, and industrial paper mills began increasing the use of waste paper, which became Taiwan's paper industry's early green transition. 5 This turning point was later standardized by the industry. Taiwan's paper industry's upstream is pulp, waste paper, wood fiber, bagasse, and wood chips. The midstream is divided into cultural paper, industrial paper, household paper, and special paper. The downstream receives cardboard boxes, printing, retail, and exports. 6 Therefore, "recycled paper" is not the name of a specific type of paper, but a raw material position in the supply chain that will be reprocessed and repriced.
But "recycling" cannot be written as a costless magic. Waste paper requires sorting, transportation, pulping, and remanufacturing. Paper fibers become shorter after multiple cycles and must face ink, glue, and other mixed substances. The circular economy does not make garbage disappear; it puts raw materials, costs, and pollution back on the same ledger to calculate.
📝 Curator's Note: The most Taiwan-like aspect of Taiwan's paper industry is not that it turns resources into products, but that it always has to find ways to connect other things when resources are insufficient.
Stone Is Not Paper, Yet May Become Paper's Next Material
The name "stone paper" is straightforward, but the process does not involve slicing stone thin or copying it into a water tank. It usually mixes mineral powders such as calcium carbonate with polymer resins like PE or PP, then forms sheets through extrusion, calendering, blow molding, or casting. The finished product's touch is close to paper, but closer to "high-mineral-filled synthetic material." In other words, it is a material between paper and plastic film, and should not be directly equated with traditional wood pulp paper. 9 10
Image: Charles Kazilek, "Scanning electron image of paper made from stone material - 100x," Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. The image is a micrograph of stone paper and does not represent any Taiwan manufacturer's product. Authorization and file information.
Taiwan's stone paper story is often linked to Longmeng Composite Materials in Tainan. A report from the National Federation of Commercial Associations records that Liang Shi-hui, in his early years, in order to increase calcium carbonate in plastic bag raw materials to reduce costs, further thought about whether stone powder could replace wood pulp, and subsequently invested years in R&D. This is the R&D history in corporate reports, which can explain how Taiwan brought plastic processing experience into paper material innovation, but cannot alone prove all environmental effects of the product. 11
Taiwan Patent TWI862349B proposes another path: composing materials with degradable resins like PBAT, active calcium carbonate, degradation aids, biodegradable carriers, and reinforcing fillers, then forming sheets using a metering hopper, parallel twin-screw extruder, and flat die. The patent text lists an example containing 60 wt% active calcium carbonate, and also lists extruder temperature zones of 110 to 170°C. These are formulas and processes proposed by the applicant, not third-party common standards for all stone paper products. 9
📝 Curator's Note: What is most worth writing about stone paper is not the slogan "no trees cut," but that it moves the papermaking question to another exam paper: with fewer trees, how do we calculate resin, mineral powder, recycling systems, and product end-of-life?
The environmental narrative of stone paper must retain conditions. The degradable formula proposed by the patent cannot be extrapolated to all stone papers on the market with PE or PP as the base. Investigative reports also point out that traditional high-fill synthetic paper may face recycling difficulties, and some claims of degradability lack sufficient third-party data. 9 10 A more practical issue is that if stone paper enters existing waste paper recycling lines, whether mineral powder and resin composition will interfere with original paper fiber recycling still depends on material formulas, sorting methods, and processing equipment; one cannot draw conclusions solely based on the three words "recyclable."
This makes stone paper an extension of Taiwan's papermaking history, not an endpoint. Bagasse once connected sugar industry byproducts into paper mills; recycled paper connected households and logistics into industry; stone paper connects minerals, plastic processing, biodegradable materials, and paper usage together. It may be suitable for waterproof, tear-resistant, or special packaging uses, but does not represent a comprehensive replacement for writing paper, newsprint, and all cardboard boxes. What new technology truly needs to answer is still: where do raw materials come from, where do they go after use, and who bears the environmental cost?
A Sheet of Paper: Still Rewriting Its Raw Materials
From bagasse to wood pulp, from wood pulp to recycled paper, Taiwan's papermaking history seems to be material substitution; in reality, every substitution moves a whole way of life. This also makes the paper industry different from typical "Taiwan Light" (Taiwan's Pride) stories. It indeed had technological breakthroughs, and once had export growth and large factories, but every growth was accompanied by the costs of raw material prices, pollution, import competition, and local labor. If written only as rising output, one would not see Taiwan's paper industry's true characteristic: it never started after possessing infinite resources, but maintained itself under conditions of incomplete resources through cross-industry cooperation and successive alternative solutions.
From bagasse to wood pulp, from wood pulp to recycled paper, Taiwan's papermaking history seems to be material substitution; in reality, every substitution moves a whole way of life. Bagasse made the sugar and paper industries dependent on each other. Paper mills made Yilan's settlements and labor form their own rhythm. Puli's water and handmade technology made paper a local craft. Recycled paper connected household sorting, logistics boxes, factory equipment, and energy issues together.
Today, Taiwan's paper production volume still has industrial paper and packaging demands as important parts; in 2024, total paper production was approximately 3.896 million metric tons, with domestic sales of about 2.52 million metric tons and exports of about 1.368 million metric tons. In the same year, paper product output was about 745,000 metric tons. These numbers indicate that the paper industry has not disappeared with digitalization; rather, demand has shifted more from newspapers and writing to logistics, food, household, and industrial packaging. 6
The future of the paper industry therefore lies not only in "using less paper." Using less paper will change the demand for cultural paper, but will not automatically eliminate the demand for cardboard boxes, toilet paper, medical paper, and food packaging.
The real question is: which paper is worth recycling, which packaging can be reduced, which energy can replace high-carbon processes, and whether paper mills should position themselves as raw material processors, packaging designers, or local cultural preservers. TPEX industry data also lists high energy consumption, process water pollution, odor, and volatile organic compounds as environmental issues the paper industry must face. 6
This question has no elegant answer. Paper is easier to recycle than some single-use plastics, but pulp may still come from distant forests. Recycled paper can reduce raw material pressure, but requires stable sorting and remanufacturing equipment. Handmade paper preserves local technology, but cannot replace millions of metric tons of industrial demand. The most honest appearance of Taiwan's paper industry is precisely that these answers coexist.
So, when walking into a paper mill site, what is truly worth asking is not "how much paper was made here before," but "how much else did this place need for paper to be made": sugar mill bagasse, mountain timber, overseas pulp, household-sorted recyclables, workers' hands, and machine heat. Paper is thin, but the supply chain behind it is thick enough to write a Taiwan industrial history. This history also reminds us not to misread industrial transformation as linear progress: the exit of large paper mills may be the loss of local jobs; the opening of cultural parks may be memory being repackaged; the revival of handmade paper may rely on the tourist market; the increase in recycled paper may shift sorting responsibility to households and cleaning teams. Every "new use" will redistribute cost and value.
If leaving the most concise annotation for Taiwan's papermaking, perhaps it is not "from traditional to modern," but "after every change in raw materials, systems, and markets, redeciding what is worth leaving behind." Bagasse did not stay in paper forever; paper mills did not stay on the production line forever. But technology, labor, and local memory can still continue to be used in another form.
Further Reading
Zhongxing Cultural and Creative Park: Paper Mill Ruins and Local Transformation
National Cultural Heritage Network: Puli Handmade Paper
References
- National Cheng Kung University Taiwan Chemical History Museum: Yung Feng Yu Papermaking and Modern Bagasse Papermaking Industry — Organizes research on bagasse papermaking starting from 1917, technological breakthroughs around 1932, and historical data on Yung Feng Yu gradually building industrial capacity from bagasse boards to papermaking.↩
- Airiti Library: The Crisis of Taiwan's Paper Industry: Centering on Raw Material Sources and International Competitiveness (1954-1970) — Academic journal article abstract, explaining the post-war competition between Taiwan Sugar and the paper industry over bagasse usage and prices, and the industrial turning point of pulp replacing bagasse in the 1970s.↩
- Yilan County Government Zhongxing Cultural and Creative Park: Historical Evolution — Official park evolution record, documenting the establishment of Zhongxing Paper Mill, raw materials and products, post-war changes, closure, and the process of industrial ruins revitalization into a cultural park.↩2
- Lanyang Museum: Post-War Changes of Zhongxing Paper Mill — Article page of research results from the Yilan County Government Culture Bureau, providing details on the reception of five factories, US aid equipment, Zhongxing Paper Industry, newsprint policy, reading group cases, and employees taking over privatization.↩23456
- China Paper Industry Association: Development Evolution — Historical article page of the industry association, organizing post-war industry stages, increased use of waste paper after the 1973 oil crisis, WTO impact, and recent circular economy directions. Involves industry self-description, used in cross-reference with academic and government data.↩23
- Industry Value Chain Information Platform: Introduction to the Papermaking Industry Chain — Industry information platform article page, providing 2024 Taiwan paper production volume, domestic and export sales, pulp and waste paper sources, wood chip self-sufficiency rate, processes, energy, and recycling utilization data.↩23456
- National Cultural Heritage Network: Puli Handmade Paper — Nantou County Government Culture Bureau registration data, explaining the historical origins of Puli handmade paper, raw material processing, beating, papermaking, pressing, and drying processes, and the scale of local industry in the 60th year of the Republic of China.↩234
- Taiwan Panorama: Guangxing Paper Mill and the Revival of Handmade Paper — English in-depth article page, interviewing Guangxing Paper Mill and Huang Huan-zhang, Wu Shu-li, recording the decline of the Puli handmade paper industry, product development, user feedback, and tourist factory transformation.↩2
- Google Patents: TWI862349B Biodegradable Stone Paper Material and Its Manufacturing Method — Full text of Taiwan patent publication, explaining the formula range of calcium carbonate, PBAT, aids, and biodegradable carriers, as well as metering, twin-screw extrusion, and casting processes. Patent claims are not equivalent to third-party environmental certification.↩23
- Dialogue Earth: Stone Papermaking, Noisy Environmental Myth? — Investigative report, discussing the material nature of stone paper as an inorganic-filled polymer film, evidence limitations of recycling and degradability claims, and controversies regarding its suitability for special uses rather than comprehensive replacement of traditional paper.↩2
- National Federation of Commercial Associations: Turning Lime into Paper Miracle, Saving Water and Environmentally Friendly Without Cutting Trees, Stone Paper Exported to 15 Countries — 2019 commercial report, organizing Taiwan Longmeng Composite Materials' R&D evolution from extending calcium carbonate plastic processing to stone paper. Corporate achievements and environmental effects are not used as independent certifications.↩