The world's largest stainless steel producer goes green

One of the world's largest stainless steel producers is located in Ningde City in Fujian Province in eastern China. And as China continues to make every effort to achieve carbon neutrality, the company is also becoming green.

The tip of the ballpoint pen is the most important part. But making this tiny part requires precision equipment and very thin steel.

As small as that ballpoint pen tip is, it took China - the world's largest ballpoint pen manufacturer - years to break its dependence on imports to create it.

The Tsingtuo Group is one of the largest manufacturers of such materials. The stainless steel produced by the group meets the requirements for the production of ballpoint pens. And it already accounts for 20 percent of China's market.

China used to rely on imported raw materials to make ballpoint pen nibs until 2017, when the domestic stainless steel model was just 2.3 millimeters thick.

In 2020, the Tsingtuo Group introduced a product with a thickness of just 1.6 millimeters. The key word behind this is technological innovation.

“Traditional steel ballpoint pen nibs are made of lead. Lead has a certain degree of toxicity. Therefore, in our research and development, we are looking for non-toxic and harmless materials, ”said Xi Feifei of the Qingtuo Research Institute of the Qingtuo Group.

And the company is working harder to become greener. He installed systems to monitor the energy consumption of his factories. They will be compared with national and even global standards.

“We have invested 300 million RMB to build two 3 million ton stainless steel waste treatment systems. It is one of the world's most common stainless steel slag and can be recycled without leaving the industrial park, ”said Zhong Shengjiang, CEO of Tsingtuo Group.

The company has also invested heavily in the new energy sector. Faced with tighter carbon caps and a higher target for carbon neutrality, it's worth seeing how manufacturers like Tsingtuo are looking at carbon neutrality as development continues.