Abstract: To reduce the waste of paper-making process reconstituted tobacco during cut tobacco pneumatic drying, the key processing parameters of pneumatic drying affecting reconstituted tobacco waste were investigated with orthogonal test. The results showed that the input moisture content in cut tobacco and the processing gas temperature were the major factors resulting in the waste, the velocity of processing gas affected the waste to a certain extent, while the effect of input temperature of cut tobacco was insignificant. The pneumatic drying parameters were optimized by reducing the input moisture content in cut tobacco and the frequency of hot air fan motor, the waste of reconstituted tobacco reduced by 27.5 percentage points, the content of paper-making process reconstituted tobacco in cigarette increased by 1.9 percentage points, meanwhile, the stability of physical quality of cut tobacco was improved, and the deliveries of tar and CO in cigarette smoke decreased by 0.9 and 1.2 mg/cig, respectively, and the sensory quality of cigarette changed little.