Muted response to cut water use

There's been a relatively disappointing response to the latest effort by the China Forest and Paper Association to cut down on water used to make paper in factories. Many domestic manufacturers use as much as ten times more water than levels set by global standards. And the association recently launched a 3-day campaign urging bigger producers to cut water-use by 20 percent.

But just one company has made any promise to reduce its use of water, while 30 have merely given their verbal support to this move. But most have maintained a non-committal silence. Analysts are blaming the lack of response on reluctance on the part of companies not to add to production costs for purely environmental reasons.