The largest plastic bottle processing plant in Asia can process 50,000 tons of plastic bottles a year, but it can only receive 1-2 tons of "supply" on average each year

More than 5,000 recycling machines can't collect 1% of the city's plastic bottles Photo/Reporter Wei Tong

More than 5,000 recycling machines have been put into use in the city, but they can't collect 1% of the city's plastic bottles.

Yingchuang Recycling Resources Co., Ltd., the largest recycled bottle-grade polyester chip factory in Asia with the largest single-line production capacity, can process about 2.2 billion beverage bottles a year, but it has been "shut down" for more than three years since 2013.

"Out of stock", lack of garbage, and lack of plastic bottles have become the main reasons why this largest plastic bottle processing line in Asia has been abandoned for many years.

In the Shunyi Tianzhu Airport Industrial Zone, a large factory covering an area of 12,000 square meters gathers thousands of machines of different sizes and heights. If a plastic bottle is thrown into the big mouth of the first machine, it will bypass the operation of thousands of machines, and the last machine will spit out hundreds of recycled polyester particles with fine cuts and large tablets. These particles can be made into beverage bottles again... This is currently the largest recycled bottle-grade polyester chip factory in Asia with a single-line production capacity. It can process about 2.2 billion beverage bottles a year, which is equivalent to tens of thousands of workers working day and night at the same time.

However, this "largest" factory in Asia has not been in operation since 2013 and has been shelved for more than three years.

As the creator of this most powerful production line in Asia, Chang Tao, the person in charge of Yingchuang Recycling Resources Co., Ltd., can only smile bitterly and say, "Although we have no rivals in this industry, Beijing simply cannot receive sufficient "garbage" supplies."

Asia's largest plastic bottle processing plant

Long-term shortage of "garbage supply"

According to Chang Tao, their production capacity is to process 50,000 tons of plastic bottles a year, but they can only receive 1-2 tons of "supply" on average each year. To put it in a more intuitive way, the thousands of machines in the "Asia's largest" plant can process 2.2 billion used beverage bottles a year, but in reality only more than 800 million were processed at the highest point.

"Lack of supply", lack of garbage, lack of plastic bottles... These are said to be the biggest reasons why Asia's largest plastic bottle processing line has been abandoned for many years, but this is very contradictory to the data that Beijing's garbage volume is increasing. Data from the Municipal Development and Reform Commission and the Municipal Urban Management Commission show that Beijing's garbage volume is increasing. In the past two years, Beijing's average daily garbage processing volume was 18,000 tons, but this year it has reached 21,700 tons, an overall increase of 20%.

So where did the garbage go? Why has Yingchuang Company not received sufficient garbage "supply" for a long time?

More than 5,000 recycling machines

Cannot collect 1% of the city's plastic bottles

Last Friday, a new smart recycling machine in Yonghui Supermarket in Xihongmen, Daxing District, attracted passers-by to stop and watch. Tap "Recycle" on the touch screen of this machine, and the baffle on the upper right corner of the machine will automatically open. As long as you put an empty beverage bottle in, you will immediately receive a rebate of 0.05 yuan on WeChat...

This machine is the 5034th recycling machine put into Beijing by Yingchuang Company. Since the end of 2012, Yingchuang Company has begun to deploy their smart beverage bottle recycling machines in many public places such as schools, hospitals, supermarkets, subways, scenic spots, parks, etc.

Although the number of recycling machines is the largest in the city, the recycling data is surprising. The total amount of plastic bottles collected by more than 5,000 smart recycling machines in a year is 40 million. This number is less than 1% of the approximately 6 billion plastic bottles discarded in Beijing each year.

As for where the remaining 99% of plastic bottles in the city go, other recycling companies or sanitation departments, the answer is neither. Wang Weiping, a member of the Municipal People's Congress who has been involved in Beijing's "garbage business" for more than 30 years, brought a proposal for garbage recycling and the answer to this question to the two sessions this year. In his words, a group of scavengers with a considerable scale and professional "literacy" in garbage recycling - known as the "Beggar Gang" group in the streets, controls the vast majority of Beijing's recyclable garbage resources.

Survey data from Beijing in 2014 showed that the amount of garbage generated was 7 million tons, and the recyclable garbage resources picked up by the "Beggar Gang" were also 7 million tons.

No match for the "black workshops"

The largest processing plant loses more than 100,000 yuan a day

The garbage resources collected by the "Beggars' Gang" eventually flow to 82 waste distribution centers outside the Fourth Ring Road of Beijing, namely the "camps" of the Beggars' Gang, and then transported to Hebei in different categories. Plastics are transported to Wenan County, Hebei, packaging is transported to Baoding, Hebei, metals are transported to Bazhou, Hebei, rubber soles are transported to Dingzhou, Hebei, and glass is transported to Handan...Wang Weiping, a deputy to the Beijing Municipal People's Congress and a counselor of the Beijing Municipal People's Government, who has been dealing with the "Beggars' Gang" for many years, once told a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily that the first generation of the "Beggars' Gang" group entered Beijing in 1978. After more than 30 years of development, they spontaneously formed a professional garbage recycling industry chain.

And this industry chain has become the biggest reason for the long-term shortage of garbage "supply" of Yingchuang Company. "We simply cannot compete with the small black workshops," said Chang Tao, general manager of Yingchuang Company. Due to the difference in environmental protection costs, their plastic bottle purchase price has no advantage over those waste distribution centers that do not have formal business licenses.

It is reported that for the recycling of plastic bottles, recycling companies need to do pre-treatment before they can sell them again. "Plastic bottles need to be sliced and cleaned. A large amount of alkali is consumed during the cleaning process, but alkali cannot be discharged casually, so sewage treatment is required, environmental impact assessment must be passed, and formal labor is required, all of which require costs."

However, unlike regular enterprises, the environmental protection cost of the Beggars' Gang "camp" is almost zero. "The market is almost full of sewage. We use alkaloids for cleaning, and they use industrial alkali for cleaning. The sewage is discharged directly without any treatment, and the cost of further treatment is much lower," Chang Tao said that he had been to the waste distribution center. "Whether it is environmental protection costs or cost losses in various aspects such as regular employment, the final purchase price of plastic bottles is calculated. We can't compete with these small black workshops at all."

"For example, white bottles, we normally buy them at 3,500 yuan/ton, but small black workshops may buy them at 4,500 yuan/ton; blue bottles are 2,800 yuan/ton, and small black workshops may buy them at 3,300 yuan/ton." In order to seize the "supply", Chang Tao said that they sometimes have to buy goods from the Beggars' Gang at the same price as the "black workshops".

The consequence of such forced purchases is serious losses for enterprises. The ¡°supply¡± is still seriously insufficient. The plastic bottle processing plant with the largest single-line production capacity in Asia had to be closed three years ago. ¡°This machine system is like a steel mill. Once it is opened, it must produce continuously and cannot be stopped. For every ton processed, we lose one ton. We lose hundreds of thousands to hundreds of thousands every day, and it hurts us.¡± Chang Tao said with a wry smile, ¡°In Germany, a recycled bottle-grade polyester chip factory like ours, with a production capacity of 100,000 tons, can bring in 100-200 million yuan in profits a year.¡±

82 scrap distribution centers disbanded

¡°Asia¡¯s largest¡± factory may restart next year

However, Yingchuang Company plans to restart their Asia¡¯s largest plastic bottle processing machine, which has been shelved for three years, next year.

Due to the task of relocating non-capital functions in Beijing and cleaning up low-end business formats and polluting enterprises, the beggars' "camps" gathered outside the Fourth Ring Road are being closed one after another. 80 of the 82 waste collection and distribution centers have been closed. Small plastic factories, paper mills, and small metallurgical factories in Hebei are also being closed. The "Beggars' Gang" industry is facing bankruptcy, and some scavengers are accelerating their withdrawal from Beijing.

For companies like Yingchuang Company, they seem to see hope, "First, we don't have to compete with small black workshops for prices. Second, the source of garbage may really come into our hands."

However, after the waste distribution centers are cleaned up, will the source of garbage really enter formal recycling and processing companies? This is what Chang Tao is most concerned about. "To be honest, the disbanding of the Beggars' Gang is in line with Beijing's policies and should be in this direction. But at present, there is no government mechanism to do the classification and recycling of garbage at the front end."

In July this year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the "Draft for Comments on the Mandatory Garbage Classification System", which once again sparked controversy over the classification and recycling of garbage. The more than 3,000 "garbage classification demonstration communities" in Beijing, which are in name only, have also once again become embarrassing.

"If garbage can be sorted from the hands of the people, it would be the most ideal state. These recyclable resources will not be polluted again due to mixing and transportation. However, it is impossible to do so without an effective government mechanism." Chang Tao believes that the deposit system for packaging may be an effective way. "Like Germany, all kinds of beverage bottles are required to collect deposits from consumers during the sales process, and cash can only be returned after the bottles are returned. This system allows a large number of beverage packaging to be safely recycled, and the volume of urban domestic garbage is reduced by 40% to 50%."

Dialogue

"The waste recycling business has reached a strategic transformation period"

Dialogue: Wang Weiping, deputy to the Beijing Municipal People's Congress and counselor of the Beijing Municipal People's Government

Beijing Youth Daily: Formal waste recycling and treatment companies like Yingchuang Company cannot receive sufficient garbage supply and can only shelve Asia's largest treatment plant. What do you think?

Wang Weiping: Beijing has reached the time to carry out a strategic transformation of its waste recycling business. From 1952 to 1978, the state-owned waste recycling companies under the cooperative general association dominated the city's recyclable waste resources. However, after 1983, with the reform and opening up, more and more recyclable waste resources were available, and a large number of farmers from other places came to Beijing to pick up garbage, which was the so-called "Beggar Gang". These people completely defeated the state-owned recycling companies. The waste recycling volume of state-owned companies was less than 1%, and 99% was picked up by the Beggar Gang.

Internationally, before 1983-1985, Europe, the United States, and Japan also had a group of disorderly, spontaneously formed, and large-scale scavengers like us. This was a disorderly spread with both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that it can reduce garbage, and we all know the disadvantages, which bring about secondary pollution and other problems. So now it is time to make a strategic transformation, just like the strategic transformation that began in Western countries in 1985.

Beijing Youth Daily: How to carry out the so-called "strategic transformation"?

Wang Weiping: There are only two ways. The first is to formalize the waste recycling industry. What is formalization? That is, there must be a business license, an office location, and a staffing system. Yingchuang Company is a newly-emerged formal enterprise.

The second point is that we must provide certain support to formal enterprises in the initial stage. What kind of support? On the one hand, it is tied to the streets to prevent scavengers from picking up recyclable resources. On the other hand, certain subsidies are implemented for recyclables with low utilization value. For example, the Beggars' Gang charges 10 cents for a plastic bottle, and if the smart machine can spit out 15 cents, then everyone will certainly prefer to recycle the machine. Therefore, the waste recycling system is at the time of strategic transformation, and we need to use the regular army to defeat the scavengers again.

Beijing Youth Daily: The "Beggars' Gang" industry is facing bankruptcy, but the government does not have a front-end garbage recycling mechanism. From the perspective of ordinary people, it is still impossible to form independent garbage sorting behavior. How should this be solved?

Wang Weiping: This is still a process of gradual replacement of the regular army, which needs to be operated by market-oriented means, and cannot be operated by completely administrative means. However, the government can provide some encouragement and support to these formal private or state-owned recycling companies, allowing them to replace the beggars' gangs.

Reporter Lin Yan

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