Beware! Takeaway garbage surrounds the city

"These boxes are not valuable, but there are many of them, so they are easy to pick up." Song Ming skillfully sorted the lunch boxes out of the trash can, poured out the soup inside, stacked them one by one, and put them in the hemp bag on his back.

Song Ming is a scavenger in Beijing. He has walked the streets and alleys for decades and has his own way of picking up trash. In recent years, with the increase in the number of takeaway lunch boxes, Song Ming has also adjusted his time, "I go to the neighborhood of residential buildings at six or seven in the morning, and go again at one or two in the afternoon."

In recent years, with the rapid development of the takeaway industry, online ordering has become more and more popular. According to iMedia Consulting data, China's online ordering market has maintained a relatively high growth rate since 2011, with the market size reaching 166.24 billion yuan in 2016 and the market size will reach 204.56 billion yuan in 2017.

It is indeed much more convenient for diners to enjoy delicious food without leaving home. But at the same time, the derived problems are also worth noting. The "white pollution" caused by countless plastic lunch boxes, disposable chopsticks, plastic bags and other takeaway garbage has once again risen, and the phenomenon of "siege" of takeaway garbage is becoming more and more serious.

Plastic siege

256 million people--This is the scale of online meal ordering users in China in 2016 according to iiMedia Research. According to the calculation that each person orders a takeaway every day, 256 million takeaways will be delivered to users every day, of which at least 256 million lunch boxes and plastic bags are generated. After use, it takes at least hundreds of years for each discarded plastic lunch box and plastic bag to degrade.

It is understood that the material of takeaway lunch boxes on the market is mostly PP5 (polypropylene). Because of its advantages such as non-toxicity, high temperature resistance and light weight, it is widely used in takeaway packaging, but its non-degradable characteristics have brought difficulties to garbage disposal.

"The key is whether there is recycling value. Plastic lunch boxes are often light, and waste recycling stations are unwilling to recycle them." Wang Canfa, director of the Institute of Environmental Resources Law at the School of Civil and Commercial Economic Law of China University of Political Science and Law, once collected plastic lunch boxes for recycling stations, but encountered the embarrassment of the recycling stations' unwillingness to accept them.

The relevant person in charge of the Beijing Municipal Urban Management Committee also said in an interview with the media that relevant surveys have found that many plastic lunch boxes are very thin and difficult to regenerate, and the market demand for this type of plastic is not large.

Song Ming told China Youth Daily and China Youth Online reporters that the current price of recycling plastic lunch boxes is about two yuan per kilogram, and many recycling stations also require that the lunch boxes are basically clean, and if they are not clean, they will not be accepted. "If it weren't for the large number of them and the effort to find them, I wouldn't pick them up."

Not easy to degrade or recycle, plastic lunch boxes can only be treated as garbage. Whether they are landfilled or incinerated, these "white garbage" will cause great damage to the environment. Finding its substitute has always been the direction of efforts of industry insiders, but it has not been realized for various reasons.

Ma Jun, director of the Center for Public and Environmental Research of the China Environmental Protection Organization, said that many Western countries use paper tableware, but because Chinese cooking methods are more oily and soupy, they are not suitable.

As for other degradable tableware, such as corn straw lunch boxes, Ma Jun said that other non-degradable materials must be added during the production process. Although they have an environmental protection effect, the effect is not as great as people imagine, and the cost is high, and there are problems in promotion.

Environmental protection must become a hard indicator

"Production responsibility must be extended to the end. The producer has the responsibility to recycle as much as it wholesales." Faced with the "siege" of takeaway garbage, Song Yuqin, a professor at the School of Environmental Science and Engineering of Peking University, called on relevant national departments to formulate relevant laws and regulations, stipulate the "producer responsibility" of enterprises, and assume the responsibility of recycling plastic lunch boxes step by step. At the same time, it is advocated to use degradable lunch boxes, and to impose environmental pollution taxes on enterprises that produce and use non-degradable lunch boxes.

He Bing, deputy dean of the School of Law of China University of Political Science and Law, also agreed with Song Yuqin's suggestion. He proposed the concept of "shared lunch boxes", "using recyclable and reusable lunch boxes, such as stainless steel products. The lunch boxes are collected after consumption, and consumers do not need to bear this cost."

As for the government's suggestion to use tax leverage to regulate the industry, Ma Jun believes that it can learn from Japan's experience, "The Japanese government imposes very high taxes, and the business model has changed." He said that it is also possible to put forward some requirements on enterprises from the management aspect, making environmental protection a hard indicator, and ultimately prompting the entire industry to increase investment to solve this problem.

In fact, with the general concern of people, some food delivery platforms have also recognized this problem in recent years and have taken some actions that are conducive to environmental protection.

In 2011, Ele.me launched the "1 yuan for environmentally friendly lunch boxes" activity on the platform to eliminate the foam lunch boxes on the platform; in April 2017, Ele.me launched a new generation of environmentally friendly and degradable plastic bags, which are currently being promoted in China. In June this year, Meituan Waimai, together with the China Cuisine Association, the China Environmental Protection Foundation and dozens of catering takeaway brands, jointly launched the "Green Takeaway Industry Convention", calling for "green development of the industry, green consumption of customers, and creating a green life together."

"As a leading enterprise, we should explore such solutions and form industry constraints and standards, otherwise we will encounter regulatory pressure and can only wait for others to constrain us." Ma Jun said.

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