Are you ready to say goodbye to plastic?
Some plastic products will be banned, are you ready? The National Development and Reform Commission and nine other departments recently issued the "Notice on Solidly Promoting Plastic Pollution Control Work", announcing detailed standards for banning and restricting related plastic products. In January this year, the "Opinions on Further Strengthening Plastic Pollution Control" was issued and implemented. The opinions proposed that by the end of this year, supermarkets, bookstores and other places in municipalities, provincial capitals, and cities with independent planning status will be prohibited from using non-degradable plastic bags, non-degradable disposable plastic straws, and non-degradable disposable plastic tableware.
As the ban on plastic products continues to increase in various places, are the public, plastic product companies, etc. ready to say "goodbye" to plastic? Can alternative products keep up? How to achieve the recycling of plastic resources? Our reporter conducted an investigation.
Residents, communities, property management companies, and recycling companies say -
"We can contribute to the resource utilization of plastics"
At noon on August 21, Aunt Li, a resident of Huigu Sunshine Community in Chaoyang District, Beijing, walked into the recycling station downstairs - a semi-underground room of more than 10 square meters, carrying a white bag filled with various plastic bottles and foam.
When she arrived at the door, Aunt Li took out her mobile phone to scan the QR code on the door. The screen above the door showed a password. After entering the password on the mobile phone, the door opened automatically. Inside the house, several bags filled with recyclables were neatly placed. On the other wall, a row of new bags were hung on the bag dispenser. Aunt Li put the bag in place, then used her mobile phone to scan the QR code on the new bag. "Snap", the lock of the bag dispenser popped open, and Aunt Li took the new bag. Aunt Li said: "In the past, the waste plastics at home were mixed and thrown into the trash can. Now this small station is open 24 hours a day, and there are many types of recycled items, and there are some profits. It's very convenient."
The construction of the recycling station has received strong support from the community and property management. Liu Chunhong, director of Huigu Sunshine Community, said that the construction of the station is expected to solve some of the garbage sorting problems encountered by the community before, and if the pilot effect is good, it will be further promoted. Beijing Sunshine Jiaye Property Management Co., Ltd., which is responsible for the management of the community, has borne the construction and maintenance costs of the station. Xiu Zongquan, the project leader of the company, said that the company introduced Aobei Environmental Protection Company to provide professional services, which provided convenience for owners to participate in garbage sorting. This model can achieve garbage reduction and reduce the safety hazards caused by residents putting plastic garbage in the corridor.
Plastics are exposed to people almost every day. With the development of emerging industries such as e-commerce, express delivery, and takeout, China's consumption of plastic products, especially disposable plastic products, continues to rise. According to data provided to this newspaper by the Recycled Plastics Branch of the China Material Recycling Association, China produced about 63 million tons of waste plastics in 2019, and the overall recycling rate of waste plastics was 30%, ranking among the top in the world.
The key to doing a good job in garbage sorting is reduction, resource utilization, and harmless treatment. As a renewable resource, if plastics can be recycled, it will greatly reduce the waste of resources and energy. However, due to the large differences in the recycling value and sorting costs of different plastics, how to classify, recycle and reuse plastics has always been a problem to be solved.
"Our original intention was to solve the problem of garbage classification with technological innovation, rather than making money by collecting waste." Lu Bin, the Beijing regional manager of Aobei Environmental Protection Company, the operator of the station, said that the recycling station adopts an intelligent self-service management model, applying intelligent technology to the recycling, transportation, sorting and revenue statistics of renewable resources including plastic products. Residents can easily handle everything from buying bags to recycling to finally confirming the revenue with a QR code.
Among the 14 recyclable resources currently provided by the station, 5 types of plastics, including PET bottles, PE bottles, foam, hard plastics, and plastic bag films, are recycled in the principle of clean, dry and odorless.
Office buildings can also participate in recycling. In Donghuan Plaza, Dongcheng District, Beijing, a bag dispenser is installed at the front desk of the building. Owners only need to send the bags to the designated area of Yinda Property Company to participate in recycling.
In the Guangximen Beilibei Community, Xiangheyuan Street, Chaoyang District, Beijing, the Aobei Recycling Station has been in operation for more than a year. There are more than 2,000 households in the community, and more than 500 households are involved. Talking about the changes, Zhang Hongxia, secretary of the community party committee, was quite touched: "Now plastics, foams and other resources are basically all in the recycling station, and the elderly and young people in the community are involved, and the awareness of sorting other garbage has also increased."
R&D companies say--
"Traditional plastics are "laid off", and biodegradable plastics can take over"
As China's plastic ban and restriction timetable is determined, various regions have successively introduced a number of plastic ban and restriction policies. When traditional plastics are "laid off", who will replace them? The "Opinions on Further Strengthening Plastic Pollution Control" proposes to promote the use of degradable shopping bags, degradable packaging films (bags), and promote the use of degradable plastic bags and other alternative products in the field of catering takeaways; strengthen the research and development of degradable alternative materials and products.
Can the degradable plastics on the market take over? Some R&D companies may be able to find the answer.
These days, in the workshop of Zhuhai Wantong Chemical Co., Ltd. of Kingfa Science and Technology Co., Ltd. in Zhuhai, Guangdong, workers are busy producing fully biodegradable shopping bags, express parcel bags, agricultural films and other plastic products. After 16 years of research and development, the company has an annual production capacity of 60,000 tons of biodegradable polyester synthesis and supporting modified special materials, and has mastered a number of core technologies for biodegradable plastics.
These white and black plastic products look no different from ordinary plastics, but their performance in the natural environment is very different.
"Compared to the "white garbage" that takes hundreds of years to disappear, under composting conditions, fully biodegradable products can be decomposed by microorganisms by more than 90% within 30 days and enter the natural world in the form of carbon dioxide and water; under non-composting conditions, some fully biodegradable products that are not cleaned up by the garbage treatment plant will gradually degrade within 2 years." Guo Defan, strategic project director of Kingfa Science and Technology Co., Ltd., said that the biodegradable plastics produced by the company meet international and national authoritative standards. He said that in the process of using fully biodegradable products, we still need to do a good job of garbage classification, designated disposal, and centralized treatment, and should not be discarded at will.
So, what standards must plastic products meet to be considered biodegradable? International standards stipulate four tests: one is the biodegradation test, the material can be decomposed by microorganisms and converted into carbon dioxide; the second is the disintegration test, the material can disintegrate during the composting process, and there is no "white pollution"; the third is the biocompatibility test, the composting residue cannot have a negative impact on the biological growth process; the fourth is the heavy metal content test, it cannot contain heavy metals that affect the composting residue. Only when these four tests are passed at the same time can it be recognized as biodegradable plastic.
Price is a major factor affecting the promotion and application of degradable plastics. It is understood that the price of a biodegradable plastic bag is generally two to three times that of an ordinary plastic bag.
Guo Defan said that the price of fully biodegradable products mainly depends on the research and development costs, the price of synthetic monomers, processing and production efficiency, etc. As the government issues a ban on plastics, more research and development forces participate, and the scale effect of the industry expands, the price will gradually decrease.
Industry experts say -
"To solve plastic pollution, we need to open up the upstream and downstream industrial chains"
"In the courtyard of No. 48, B, Zhongguancun South Street, Beijing, we observed that a resident brought his own disposable gloves, poured kitchen waste into the kitchen waste bin, and then put the garbage bag into the "other garbage" bin."
Recently, some members of environmental protection organizations have formed a garbage sorting observation group, using the garbage map function of the Blue Map App to mobilize volunteers to take photos of the garbage sorting work in the community.
In garbage sorting, will residents separate kitchen waste and bags containing kitchen waste? Should milk cartons be put into the "other garbage" bin or the "recyclables" bin? Should the tape on the foam be torn off? The treatment of these waste plastics is one of the observation points of the observation group.
Xie Xinyuan, policy director of the zero waste project of Beijing Friends of Nature Charity Foundation, is one of the volunteers. He said that if the garbage bag is made of biodegradable plastic, the connection problem needs to be considered. On the one hand, the complete degradation of biodegradable plastics requires meeting specific conditions such as temperature, humidity, and strains of industrial composting. Therefore, the construction of industrial composting facilities is a prerequisite for switching to degradable garbage bags. On the other hand, many residents currently use ordinary plastic bags as garbage bags. If these plastic bags enter the kitchen waste bin, it will affect the treatment of kitchen waste. Therefore, relevant departments should coordinate the relationship between degradable plastic bags and garbage classification, and teach residents to correctly dispose of degradable plastic bags and ordinary plastic bags.
Experts suggest that the scope of use and applicable level of degradable plastics should be clarified. For example, packaging materials that come into contact with food and plastic bags for kitchen waste should give priority to the use of degradable plastics. For industries where it is difficult to use degradable materials on a large scale, reusable products should be promoted.
Plastic pollution involves a wide range of areas, and pollution control requires joint efforts and opening up the upstream and downstream industrial chains. According to the "Opinions on Further Strengthening the Control of Plastic Pollution", by 2025, a management system for the production, circulation, consumption, recycling and disposal of plastic products should be basically established, and a multi-governance system should be basically formed.
How to open up the industrial chain? Industry associations can play a role. The Green Recycled Plastic Supply Chain Joint Working Group established at the end of June this year is considered to have made a good start. The working group is led by two industry associations, the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation and the China Material Recycling Association, and jointly initiated by 16 leading enterprises in the industrial chain.
"Solving plastic pollution is a systematic project. We should link various links such as source reduction, product design, mid-end recycling, processing, and back-end recycled product applications to form a closed loop that is conducive to plastic recycling and regeneration." said Wang Yonggang, deputy leader of the joint working group.
It is understood that the primary task of the working group is to build a complete set of recycled plastic standards, certification systems, and testing systems, covering the entire life cycle of recycled plastics, and scientifically evaluating and guiding the design and production of green plastic products. For example, in terms of standard system construction, guidelines for the easy recycling and easy regeneration of plastic products will be established, as well as clean production evaluation of recycled plastics, evaluation indicators for green recycled plastics, and requirements for the production and marketing supervision chain of green recycled plastics.
"To fundamentally solve the problem of plastic waste pollution, we still have to rely on reduction and recycling. For those practices that use recycled packaging, shared cloth bags and other durable goods for reuse, it is even more worthy of innovation and promotion." Xie Xinyuan said.
Others' experience
A glimpse of Japan's "Plastic Resource Recycling Strategy"
In May 2019, the Japanese government issued the "Plastic Resource Recycling Strategy", the main contents of which include:
First, plastic reduction. Reduce the use of disposable plastics; accelerate the development and use of alternatives to plastic products; accelerate the development of new packaging with less environmental load and can be used multiple times; advocate the public to use and develop a sharing economy; extend the service life of items through maintenance.
Second, plastic recycling, circulation and reuse. Efficiently classify and recycle and utilize plastic resources; reduce costs through collaborative cooperation and optimized design; and improve China's resource recycling system.
Third, use renewable materials and biomass plastics. Improve the practicality of biomass plastics to replace plastics from fossil fuel sources; low-carbon product certification, etc., to promote the popularization of recycled materials and biomass plastics by consumers; designated bags for combustible garbage should, in principle, use biomass plastics.
Fourth, countermeasures against marine plastics. Prevent plastic waste from flowing into the sea and causing pollution; promote innovation of alternatives, etc.
Fifth, international cooperation. Actively promote the construction of testing and research networks around the world.
The Japanese government has formulated a corresponding timetable: in terms of emission reduction, by 2030, the cumulative reduction of disposable plastic emissions will be 25%. In terms of recycling, the goal of doubling the recycling of plastics (about 2 million tons) will be achieved by 2030.
(Source: Recycled Plastics Branch of China Material Recycling Association)