Pick up your phone and tap your finger, and the food will be delivered to your door in a short while. You don't need to wash dishes after eating and drinking. With the rise of Internet food delivery platforms, the huge amount of food box waste has become an increasingly troublesome environmental problem. Reporters learned that although plastic food boxes are recyclable, due to the lack of a garbage classification system, these renewable resources are being landfilled or incinerated as ordinary garbage day after day. At present, the total daily orders of the three major food delivery platforms, Meituan Waimai, Ele.me, and Baidu Waimai, have exceeded 20 million orders. According to the average of two food boxes per order, about 40 million discarded food boxes are generated every day.

Recycling points look down on takeaway food boxes

Every time it's mealtime, Beijing's restaurants are busy, and the deliverymen of major food delivery platforms are also busy.

A spicy hot pot restaurant near Xisi uses more than 100 plastic food boxes every day. These transparent plastic food boxes are printed with a triangular logo with an arrow, which means they are recyclable. But when these lunch boxes reach consumers, most of them are thrown away as garbage. "It's too troublesome to clean the lunch boxes, so I always throw them away directly." Wang Fan, a white-collar worker who often orders takeout, said, "If there is leftover soup in the lunch box, just cover the lid, put it in the bag and throw it away."

After these greasy lunch boxes are thrown into the trash can, they are unlikely to be noticed by recycling points. The reporter visited and found that it was difficult to find takeout lunch boxes at waste recycling points. "Two to three cents per kilogram. If you want to sell it, you have to clean the lunch box before bringing it over." A waste recycler near Ping'anli said.

The reporter learned that a takeout lunch box usually weighs about 20 grams, which means that you have to collect 50 lunch boxes to sell them for a few cents. Faced with the meager recycling profits and the cost of cleaning the lunch boxes, plastic lunch boxes are not popular in the recycling market.

"I asked around at the waste collection points around the area, but no one wanted the lunch boxes. I could only take them home, wash them, and reuse them when I pack them for the restaurant next time." said Mr. Dong, an environmentalist.

It is difficult to recycle lunch boxes mixed with garbage

The "white pollution" caused by plastic products is a problem faced by the whole world. If there is a more sound garbage classification system, plastic packaging will be recycled more effectively through clean recycling channels. However, data shows that only 14% of plastic packaging is recycled worldwide.

Recently, the reporter came to a large garbage transfer station in Nancheng. In the huge factory building, the screening machine and conveyor belt are running non-stop. The garbage in the garbage pool is first sent to a drum-shaped screening machine, and is divided into screened materials and screened materials according to different volumes, and then enters two conveyor belts respectively. Recyclables such as beverage bottles and lunch boxes are screened materials together with other larger garbage. Workers stand by the conveyor belt and keep picking out recyclables.

At this garbage transfer station, nearly 3 tons of recyclables are sorted out every day, most of which are beverage bottles and plastic lunch boxes. Plastic recyclables will be sent to plastic recycling plants, crushed and cleaned according to different types, and then made into plastic particles, which will be processed into non-edible plastic products such as benches and woven bags. But in fact, if these lunch boxes are washed and recycled specifically, they can meet food-grade safety standards and be recycled into plastic lunch boxes or mineral water bottles.

Due to the limited efficiency of manual sorting and machine sorting, many plastic lunch boxes that are not sorted out are landfilled or incinerated.

Takeaway platforms focus on degradable lunch boxes

The recycling and processing of lunch boxes requires costs, who should pay for it? It is understood that in Japan, the recycling and processing fees of lunch boxes are borne by consumers; in Europe and the United States, the processing fees are borne by manufacturers. In China, Shanghai began to implement the "Interim Measures for the Management of Disposable Plastic Lunch Boxes" in June 2000. The management department charged 3 cents per disposable plastic lunch box to manufacturers as a recycling fee, but the implementation of this system was not smooth. In May 2014, the measures were abolished.

"At present, China still has no corresponding subsidy mechanism for the recycling of waste plastics and other renewable resources." Sheng Min, secretary-general of the Recycled Plastics Branch of the China Recycling Association of Renewable Resources, said that there are two ways to learn from. One is the European model, which subsidizes the recycling and treatment of renewable resources through the government's mandatory policies, and the other is the Japanese model, which cultivates the quality of the people and does a good job of garbage classification from the source.

At present, in the absence of a recycling mechanism for takeaway boxes, some takeaway platforms have begun to take the initiative to develop environmentally friendly lunch boxes. Recently, Meituan Takeaway, in conjunction with the China Cuisine Association, the China Environmental Protection Foundation, and hundreds of catering takeaway brands, jointly launched the "Green Takeaway Industry Convention" and established the "Green Takeaway Alliance". Among them, promoting the use of safe, environmentally friendly and degradable green tableware is written into the convention.

According to people in the catering industry, most of the biodegradable lunch boxes on the market are not suitable for Chinese food. They are not only easy to seep water and oil, causing rice to stick together, but also unpopular in appearance. However, this is not a technical problem, but a lack of sufficient attention and investment.

Meituan Dianping Group Chief Food Safety Officer Zhong Yongjian said that the Green Takeaway Alliance hopes to attract manufacturers of green tableware to jointly promote the popularization of green tableware. At present, Meituan Takeaway has launched the "Rest Assured Lunch Box" project. "We work with the Packaging Materials Research Institute to formulate standards and look for manufacturers according to these standards." Zhong Yongjian said.

It is also understood that Ele.me is also working with scientific research institutions to develop biodegradable and environmentally friendly lunch boxes.

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