How much garbage is generated from a simple meal? Image source: Qianku.com

In Lancuiyuan Community, Bandao Community, Jinggang Town, Shushan District, Hefei City, Anhui Province, every household has an exclusive "smart QR code card". When dumping garbage, residents scan the "smart QR code card" to select recyclable garbage (including paper, plastic, etc.), kitchen waste and toxic and hazardous waste, and the corresponding box door will open automatically. Residents can get corresponding points and exchange them for daily necessities. The picture shows residents disposing of garbage according to classification on July 16. Photo by Ge Yinian (People's Vision)

At noon, Xiao Xia, a media person working in Haidian District, Beijing, finished his lunch. Since the company does not have a cafeteria, he and his colleagues usually order takeout on their mobile phones for lunch. After a meal, Xiao Xia counted the rice, main dishes, side dishes, soup...one person's meal consumed 4 plastic lunch boxes. In the trash can in the company's corridor, takeout lunch boxes have piled up into a small mountain.

The rapid growth of the online food delivery industry has greatly facilitated people's eating and filled their stomachs, but it has also created more waste to a certain extent. And plastic lunch boxes go directly to the garbage dump, which poses a hidden danger to the environment.

How to reduce the piles of plastic lunch boxes? How to achieve green development in the food delivery industry? This is a difficult problem that requires multi-faceted measures.

¢Ù Large use of plastic lunch boxes

How popular is food delivery? According to data released by Internet food delivery platforms such as Meituan Waimai, Ele.me, and Baidu Waimai, the daily order volume of the three food delivery platforms in China is about 20 million. Due to the fast delivery, rich variety, and convenient payment, many foreigners in China commented that in addition to "high-speed rail, Alipay, shared bicycles, and online shopping", China's food delivery should also be classified as one of the "new four great inventions."

The explosion of the food delivery business has led to the excessive use of food boxes. An environmental protection organization studied and analyzed 100 takeaway orders and found that on average, 3.27 disposable plastic lunch boxes/cups are consumed for each takeaway order. This means that more than 60 million plastic lunch boxes are used every day on China's Internet ordering platforms.

In fact, not only lunch boxes, but also plastic bags, plastic tableware, plastic outer packaging, etc. used for takeaway delivery are all plastic waste. The main components of ordinary plastic lunch boxes and tableware are polypropylene, and the main component of plastic bags is polyethylene, both of which are ordinary non-degradable plastics. It is reported that the plastic bags used by the takeaway platform every day can cover 420,000 square meters, which can cover a West Lake in about 15 days.

For many catering companies, using plastic lunch boxes is also a helpless move. Some industry insiders said that Chinese food contains more soup and grease, so it is more appropriate to use plastic lunch boxes. Although some catering companies currently use paper boxes and other packaging, most degradable lunch boxes are not suitable for Chinese food. They are easy to seep water and oil, causing rice to stick together, and are difficult to be accepted by consumers. In addition, the cost of lunch boxes is also a consideration for catering companies. A person in charge of a catering company said that takeaway packaging accounts for about 2% of the total cost.

In fact, the plastic lunch boxes currently used for takeout are not "useless". The reporter's investigation found that most plastic lunch boxes are printed with recyclable logos, and resources can be reused through the garbage recycling process. But the reality is that most consumers throw away the lunch boxes directly after eating. Even if there are leftovers in the lunch boxes, most of them are "covered". The "mix and match" of plastic garbage and kitchen garbage has brought a lot of trouble to the recycling of takeaway garbage.

¢ÚPoor plastic recycling channels

Even if it enters the garbage recycling process, the recycling value of takeaway lunch boxes is not high. According to industry insiders, the price of plastic recycling is low and the cost of re-resourceization is high. Recyclers are generally unwilling to pick up takeaway lunch boxes full of oil stains. Even if they pick them up, it takes time and effort to clean them. Therefore, plastic lunch boxes are not popular in the recycling market. Whether it is a garbage recycling company or the city's "scavenger army", they are "indifferent" to recycling plastic products.

At the same time, China has not yet formed a complete recycling system. As a low-value-added recyclable, plastic lunch boxes are difficult to enter the recycling channel of renewable resources. Even if consumers take the initiative to sort plastic waste, due to the imperfect recycling system, sanitation vehicles may mix various types of garbage together when transporting garbage.

Since it is difficult to recycle, plastic lunch boxes can only be "mixed" into urban domestic waste, enter the garbage disposal system, and eventually be incinerated or landfilled as ordinary garbage. However, if different plastic components are incinerated together, it is easy to cause air pollution; and before the garbage is landfilled, large plastic garbage is generally simply incinerated, which will produce a lot of waste gas emissions. Therefore, letting plastic lunch boxes enter the garbage disposal system is by no means a fundamental solution.

In fact, the "white pollution" caused by plastic products is not unique to China, and countries around the world are also facing the same problem. If there is a relatively sound garbage classification system, plastic lunch boxes and other products can be effectively recycled through recycling channels. However, data show that only 14% of plastic packaging is recycled worldwide.

There are also experiences and lessons to be learned from the cost of recycling lunch boxes. For example, 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 implemented the "Interim Measures for the Management of Disposable Plastic Lunch Boxes" in June 2000, and the management department charged 3 cents per lunch box to manufacturers of disposable plastic lunch boxes as a recycling and processing fee. However, the implementation of this system was not smooth and was abolished in May 2014.

¢Û Strengthen classified recycling and treatment

Experts said that solving the problem of takeaway garbage should start from the source and downstream. It is necessary to take measures to reduce the generation of takeaway garbage, strengthen the professional recycling and treatment of takeaway garbage, vigorously improve the efficiency of utilizing and treating "stock garbage", and strictly control the generation and scale of "incremental garbage".

Strengthening classified recycling and resource processing are the main countermeasures to solve the problem of takeaway garbage. In March this year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the "Implementation Plan for the Domestic Waste Classification System", requiring the mandatory classification of domestic waste to be implemented in 46 cities in China first, and the domestic waste recycling rate to reach more than 35% by the end of 2020.

In this regard, experts said that because the identification of takeaway garbage is relatively simple, it can be used as a breakthrough in promoting garbage classification management. For example, in areas where students and office workers are relatively concentrated, targeted takeaway garbage classification and recycling are carried out. After the initial classification and collection are achieved, professional companies will be designated for unified recycling and treatment.

Sheng Min, Secretary-General of the Recycled Plastics Branch of the China Recycling Association of Renewable Resources, said that China currently has no corresponding subsidy mechanism for the recycling of recycled resources such as waste plastics. He said that there are two ways to learn from, one is the European model, through the government's adoption of mandatory policies to subsidize the recycling and treatment of renewable resources; the other is the Japanese model, by cultivating the quality of the people, to do a good job of garbage classification from the source.

Song Guojun, a professor at the School of Environment of Renmin University of China, believes that the mandatory source classification policy should be firmly implemented, the polluter pays principle should be followed, the extended producer responsibility system should be implemented, polluters should be encouraged to reduce waste output, and the social cost of garbage management should be compensated with the income from resource recovery.

For the classified recycling of low-value-added recyclables such as plastics, some cities in China have also formulated some measures, such as establishing funds to issue subsidies and punishing violators. Some industry insiders pointed out that in the specific implementation, it is necessary to continue to explore and solve the problems of pre-subsidy of the industrial chain, the inability to determine the objects of punishment, the high cost of statistical supervision of recyclables, and excessive investment.

¢ÜInnovative takeaway packaging

From the source of takeaway garbage, it is necessary to strengthen the regulation and supervision of takeaway companies to achieve the reduction of takeaway garbage. Among them, the most important idea is to seek innovation in takeaway delivery packaging and methods.

Experts suggest that subsidies can be provided for the scientific and technological research and development of relevant enterprises, tax exemptions can be reduced for degradable products, and "white pollution" can be blocked at the source, so that the public can obtain more convenient and environmentally friendly alternative products.

At present, some catering companies have used degradable materials such as pulp lunch boxes and sugarcane fiber dinner plates, but the cost of such lunch boxes is often higher than that of plastic lunch boxes, so it will take time for them to be fully popularized.

In June this year, Meituan Waimai, China Cuisine Association, China Environmental Protection Foundation and dozens of catering takeaway brands jointly launched the "Green Takeaway Industry Convention (Green Ten Articles)", which proposed "promoting the use of green tableware" and other contents, and issued a "hero post" to the supply chain to find healthy and safe green tableware for small and micro enterprises in the catering industry. There are also takeaway platforms that are cooperating with scientific research institutions to develop degradable and environmentally friendly lunch boxes.

Experts suggest that binding regulations should be made for the reduction and resource utilization of takeaway packaging materials, and that garbage disposal fees should be added to takeaways in accordance with the principle of "whoever pollutes should govern", so that merchants, platforms and consumers can pay for the recycling and disposal of takeaway garbage.

There are also opinions that the garbage recycling deposit system commonly used internationally can be emulated to innovate recycling channels. When consumers buy takeout food, they first pay a deposit to the platform. After finishing their meal, they send the takeout food box to a self-service recycling machine or a manual recycling point. After confirmation by the platform, the deposit will be returned to the consumer, so as to promote consumers to establish healthy and good consumption concepts and garbage recycling awareness.

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