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The Chinese home appliance market has now entered a peak period of replacement. The new round of home appliance trade-in campaign will further increase users' enthusiasm for purchasing home appliances and stimulate the consumer market. This is not only expected to inject new vitality into the home appliance industry, but will also further promote the green transformation and sustainable development of China's economy.

"A 4,999 yuan vertical air conditioner, with a maximum subsidy of 600 yuan and free old machine removal service, is really affordable and convenient for ordinary people!" Recently, after learning about the Sichuan Province's home appliance trade-in subsidy policy, Mr. Luo, a Chengdu citizen, quickly placed an order to replace the old air conditioner that had been used at home for more than ten years. Throughout the process, he only needs to pay, upload invoices and installation photos, and complete information reporting to obtain the full process service of trade-in.

In June this year, Sichuan took the home appliance trade-in as a specific measure to serve the people's livelihood, promote consumption and promote high-quality development, and at the same time issued supporting policies to coordinate the forces of all parties to fully promote the project.

At present, the Chinese home appliance market has entered a peak period of renewal and replacement. The relevant policies of old-for-new will undoubtedly further increase users' enthusiasm for purchasing home appliances and stimulate the consumer market. At the same time, the road of "turning waste into treasure" of waste home appliances has also attracted the attention of more and more companies. Upstream and downstream companies have actively participated in it and jointly dug for the rich "urban mine". Under the trend of old-for-new, how can abandoned home appliances start their "rebirth" journey? The reporter conducted an in-depth interview on this.

Old-for-new brings fire to the consumer market

"After understanding the subsidy policy, some customers who were still hesitating whether to replace home appliances even retired all the "old" equipment in their homes and replaced them with new ones at one time." In recent days, the reporter visited many home appliance malls in Chengdu. Many interviewed sales staff said that due to the large subsidy, the relevant policies of old-for-new have greatly stimulated the consumption enthusiasm of the people, and the sales of various home appliances in the mall have also achieved a substantial increase.

In June this year, Sichuan implemented special funds to promote the old-for-new exchange. Combined with the number of overdue home appliances provided by the industry association, the demand for old-for-new exchange of home appliances in the second half of the year was calculated, and it was determined that the provincial, municipal and county governments would arrange 1 billion yuan of fiscal funds for the subsidy of old-for-new exchange of home appliances, with a target of 2 million units. The government policy guidance and the measures of multiple concessions by enterprises such as production, sales, recycling and finance were adopted to provide consumers with various discounts with the greatest efforts. Among the more than 900 enterprises participating in the sales selected in the first batch, many of them also increased the discount.

It is worth mentioning that Sichuan has also created an information system for old-for-new exchange to promote the "one-stop" application for subsidies. Among them, after consumers purchase new home appliances, they need to enter the invoice, product brand model and other information into the online system. After the recycling company recycles the old home appliances, it needs to enter the old-for-new voucher and the photo of the old home appliances with the old machine label affixed into the system to realize the collection and entry of the old, and then the acquired old home appliances can be sent to qualified waste home appliance dismantling enterprises for dismantling and processing. The participation of all parties is fully reflected in the information system, realizing the closed-loop management of the entire chain of sales, recycling and dismantling. In addition, the convenience of the information system upload process has also become an important factor in attracting the active participation of all parties.

The reporter learned that the new business opportunities brought by the old-for-new exchange have benefited the entire industrial chain a lot. Consumers can enjoy more services and discounts, recycling companies and dismantling companies can obtain corresponding subsidies, merchants usher in the peak sales season, and manufacturers are more motivated to update and upgrade their products... According to data from the Sichuan Provincial Department of Commerce, since June 15, Sichuan's home appliance trade-in activities have sold a total of 21,800 units (sets) of home appliances, with sales of 100.39 million yuan and subsidies of 9.68 million yuan. Among them, the more popular sales categories are refrigerators (freezers), air conditioners, washing machines (dryers), televisions, etc.

It takes only one minute to disassemble a refrigerator

As a local old-brand home appliance sales company established for more than 30 years, Sichuan Jiafulai Electric Appliance Co., Ltd. has keenly sensed the new business opportunities behind the replacement of home appliances through door-to-door services, and has started to prepare for the construction of a recycling system for old home appliances very early.

"Before customers buy new home appliances, the company will provide door-to-door evaluation services. After evaluating the old home appliances, it will provide recycling subsidies. While the price is better, it also saves customers from the trouble of spending time and energy to deal with old home appliances alone. This service has always been highly recognized." The relevant person in charge of the company said.

Relevant data show that since the beginning of this year, Jiafulai has recycled a total of 12,100 old home appliances, and 2,653 old home appliances in June, mainly refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, TVs and computers. After these old home appliances are recycled, they will be sent to qualified professional dismantling companies.

Sichuan Zhongming Recycling Resources Comprehensive Utilization Co., Ltd. currently has four dismantling lines for televisions, washing machines, air conditioners, refrigerators, etc., and can process up to 2.085 million waste electrical and electronic products annually. According to the operating procedures, after entering the dismantling process, waste household appliances will go through multiple links such as warehousing, weighing, and traceability codes. Then, through the effective classification of materials, about 95% of the resources can be recycled and reused.

"In the dismantling process, there is another extremely important task, which is to intercept hazardous waste." Zheng Jiyong, general manager of Zhongming Company, said that there will be some elements that can be extracted and reused on these old household appliance components, but they are often accompanied by lead acid, resin powder and other substances that are harmful to the environment. Therefore, the professionalism of the dismantling procedures and operations is directly related to the reuse rate of dismantled materials by downstream deep processing enterprises.

"In one minute at most, a complete refrigerator can be decomposed into recyclable materials such as copper, iron, and plastic." Zheng Jiyong told reporters that their job is to maximize the residual value of waste household appliances, and then, based on the actual situation, flow the available resources to the next level of deep processing enterprises to start their "rebirth" journey.

Nuggets for the "urban mine" that never runs dry

According to public data from the Ministry of Commerce, by 2023, China's main categories of household appliances will have more than 3 billion units, and every 100 households will have more than 100 air conditioners, refrigerators, and televisions. According to the relevant standards of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, the safe service life of household washing machines and range hoods is generally 8 years, and the safe service life of household refrigerators and room air conditioners is 10 years.

In March this year, the "Action Plan for Promoting Large-Scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Replacement" issued by the State Council proposed that by 2027, the amount of waste household appliances recycled will increase by 30% compared with 2023.

"A considerable number of Chinese families are currently using home appliances that were purchased in 2009 when the old-for-new policy was implemented, and are now approaching or reaching the point of replacement." The heads of the interviewed electrical appliance sales companies, including Jiafulai, all believe that at this stage, the strong policy push is not only expected to inject new vitality into the home appliance industry, but will also further promote the green transformation and sustainable development of China's economy.

It is worth mentioning that in the local area, the production practice of a waste home appliance recycling interconnection factory has received widespread social attention. Through a large number of dismantling cases, the factory found that a waste air conditioner can usually be dismantled into 55% steel, 17% copper, 11% plastic, and 7% aluminum. The dismantled materials can be processed into recycled new materials and can be used in products such as cups and cars. The dismantled aluminum alone can make 190 cans.

"By decomposing waste electromechanical equipment, communication tools, home appliances, and electronic products, we will find that scrapped plastics are "urban oil fields" and scrapped waste paper is "urban forests". Waste resources need to be regenerated and recycled." Zheng Jiyong introduced that the company expects to dismantle waste electrical appliances throughout the year to obtain 44,000 tons of various products, including 9,000 tons of plastics, 8,000 tons of steel, 1,000 tons of non-ferrous metals, and 6,000 tons of glass. "These old appliances scattered in the homes of ordinary people are like an inexhaustible "urban mine" and will produce significant economic and social benefits."

Faced with the large-scale recycling of discarded home appliances brought about by the old-for-new exchange, some industry insiders have made suggestions for the sustainable development of the industry. Relevant departments should gradually bring recycling companies and individual operators into unified management to improve the quality of circulation services; pay attention to guiding recycling and dismantling companies to take the path of industrialization, agglomeration, and high quality, and improve the profitability of companies through quality improvement, efficiency increase, and technology upgrades, thereby enhancing the endogenous driving force of recycling and dismantling companies. At the same time, accelerate the formulation and revision of standards such as valuation and evaluation rules and recycling specifications for waste home appliances.

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