<p>This paper investigates the differences in reaction characteristics and evolutionary behavior of gas production between waste paper and plastic steam gasification in a fixed-bed reaction system. The gasification performance of their chars was compared. Thereby, it reveals the key factors affecting the differences in the performance of thesteam gasification reaction of waste paper and plastic. The gasification was carried out at a temperature of 1073&#xa0;K and an S/C of 14.4. The research showed that waste paper is more suitable as a raw material for hydrogen production by steam gasification. Compared to plastic, waste paper has a higher carbon conversion efficiency of 71.39%, and waste paper has 4.5 times the hydrogen production of plastic, at 26.26 mmol/g. After 3&#xa0;h of reaction, the carbon conversion rate of waste paper char was as high as 82.36%, which was higher than that of plastic char, indicating that the waste paper char had better reactivity. The elemental analysis, Raman analysis and mineral analysis showed that the higher reaction performance of waste paper char is caused by its lower graphitization degree and higher catalytic index. This work holds significant importance for optimizing the utilization of waste resources.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>