Plastic waste pollution is a globally recognized environmental problem.

On January 19 this year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment released the "Opinions on Further Strengthening the control of plastic pollution". The opinions make it clear that by 2020, it will take the lead in banning and restricting the production, sale and use of some plastic products in some regions and some fields. China will strengthen the control of plastic pollution in accordance with the idea of "banning a batch, replacing a recycling batch and standardizing a batch".

China will reduce the production and use of plastic products in the next five years, helping to reduce the world's major sources of plastic pollution, Bloomberg reported. The use of plastic packaging has increased in recent years as online shopping and food delivery have increasingly become a way of life, the report said. In light of this, China has taken multiple measures to reduce plastic pollution, including introducing a mandatory garbage sorting system.

The environmental harm caused by plastic products has been increasingly proven, and the ban coincides with a global campaign to curb plastic pollution, according to Latam. It is also part of a broader effort by China to sort waste across the country.

China is the world's largest producer and consumer of plastics, producing more than 100 million tons of plastic raw materials every year, and more than 60 million tons of plastic consumer products. However, the disposal process after plastic consumption, especially the recycling of plastics, is not ideal. Before, China's plastic recycling mainly relied on scavengers, recycling efficiency is very low, most of the plastic waste along with other urban waste landfill or incineration. Although incineration is a harmless way to dispose of waste, it also brings greenhouse gas emissions problems. Some home-based recycling also involves irregular cleaning and crushing processes that pollute groundwater.

There are two main difficulties in the plastic cycle. First, the high cost of recycled plastic makes it difficult for recycling companies to make a profit. Due to the policy of banning the import of foreign waste plastics in 2018, the recycling and recycling plastics industry has turned to China for recycling, and the rising price of labor has led to the high price of recycled plastics. The continued low price of crude oil and the increasing capacity of the chemical industry have made the price of raw plastics lower and lower. The price of recycled plastics and raw plastics is inverted, resulting in the loss of profit space for the recycled plastics industry. Therefore, how to build a new value chain is the key issue of plastic recycling.

Secondly, the upstream product manufacturing process brings great difficulties to plastic recycling. In order to meet functional needs, many products are composed of multiple materials, which makes the work of recycling and separation difficult. For example, food packaging, chemical fiber materials for clothing, and different types of plastic bottles, the complexity of these plastic products makes the recycling process extremely difficult. Many products are not designed with the issue of back-end recycling in mind.

These problems remind us that plastic recycling is a problem that the whole industry chain should participate in. Only from the upstream production end or downstream recycling end, can not solve the problem. Even if plastic alternatives or degradable materials are used in the design of products at the production end, there are still inescapable recycling and disposal problems downstream.

Compared with before, the progress of China's latest "plastic restriction order" in 2020 is to focus on the construction of a holistic plastic recycling industry chain. It puts forward the construction of plastic recycling management system and steps, from different levels of efforts, such as standardizing the production of enterprises, improving the waste recycling system and so on. Supporting supervision, policies and scientific and technological research and development also have a relatively comprehensive framework and system planning.

The latest "plastic limit order" is the specific implementation of the spirit of the tenth meeting of the Central Commission for Deepening Overall Reform last year, indicating that the state has determined the overall goal and direction of plastic governance in policy, and will become a reference for future laws and regulations revision and local policies and measures. For example, the ongoing revision of the solid Waste Law, the Implementation Plan of the Comprehensive Ban on the production, sale and use of disposable non-degradable plastic products in Hainan Province, and the garbage classification that will be implemented in Beijing in May. The new round of "plastic restriction" is bound to have an impact on all industries, and all industries have to consider how to replace or solve the problem of plastic recycling, which will take some time to complete.

At the same time, it is very important that every consumer should enhance environmental awareness, change their lifestyle and consumer behavior. In fact, the problem of plastic will ultimately come down to the problem of consumption. Consumption, which already accounts for 50 percent of China's GDP, is the linchpin of economic life, and changes in people's consumption behavior could ultimately transform industries.

(Interview by Qin Ningwei)

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