Where will the big guys go?

Recently, "trade-in" has become a hot word. This year's government work report proposed that efforts should be made to expand China's demand and promote a virtuous cycle of the economy, and that the trade-in of consumer goods should be encouraged and promoted. Immediately afterwards, the State Council issued the "Action Plan for Promoting Large-Scale Equipment Renewal and Trade-in of Consumer Goods", which clearly implemented four major actions: equipment renewal, trade-in of consumer goods, recycling and reuse, and standard improvement.

The new round of "trade-in" not only includes traditional consumer goods such as automobiles and home appliances, but will also promote the renewal and transformation of key industry equipment, equipment in the fields of construction and municipal infrastructure, transportation equipment, old agricultural machinery, and educational and medical equipment, which corresponds to a huge market space of trillions of yuan.

How is this market developing at present? What new opportunities do Sichuan companies have? With these questions, reporters from West China Metropolis Daily and Cover News visited front-line companies and talked with industry experts, and launched a special report "Regeneration of Everything: Where will the big guys go?" from now on, focusing on the new trillion-level market under the "circular economy".

Recently, Ms. Liu, a resident of Chengdu, is preparing to renovate a second-hand house and plans to replace all the old furniture and appliances in her home. However, these "big guys" are facing the embarrassing situation of being difficult to throw away and difficult to sell.

Recently, the State Council issued the "Action Plan for Promoting Large-Scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-in", which clearly proposed to implement recycling and recycling actions, improve the recycling network of waste products and equipment, and promote high-level resource recycling.

With the introduction of policies, the "old and broken" in Ms. Liu's eyes has become a big market containing "treasures".

Where will the "big guys" waste furniture and appliances go? What opportunities does the new round of "trade-in" bring to Sichuan's circular economy enterprises? In this regard, reporters from West China Metropolis Daily and Cover News conducted an investigation.

Disposal of used goods and reselling in the second-hand market have become the mainstream

Trade-in means that a large number of old products will be eliminated, but it is not easy to move old sofas, old mattresses and other "over-service" big guys out of the house and properly dispose of them.

"At first, I contacted a nearby furniture and appliance recycler, but the other party did not come to my door. After looking at the photos I sent, the other party said that the bed and wardrobe were too old and could not be sold at a high price. If all were moved away, they could only give 100 yuan." Ms. Liu said that it cost several thousand yuan to buy furniture alone, and old appliances such as washing machines were still usable, so the price of 100 yuan was really unacceptable.

Later, Ms. Liu put these furniture and appliances on the second-hand trading platform. After a week of tossing and bargaining with different buyers, she finally sold the sofa, coffee table, washing machine and desk at a price ranging from 30% to 50% off. The rest that could not be sold could only be treated as garbage by the decoration workers, and 200 yuan was paid for transportation, handling and recycling.

Ms. Liu's troubles are not an isolated case. It is understood that many Chengdu citizens have encountered the embarrassment of having nowhere to go for "big guys" such as mattresses and sofas. Faced with the current situation of having to pay for finding someone to collect furniture, some people choose to throw them away, but the randomly discarded old furniture not only increases the workload of the property, but also poses a risk of environmental pollution.

So, more people choose to resell second-hand. The reporter entered "second-hand sofa" on the online idle trading platform Xianyu, which showed that more than 1,800 people were searching for the keyword, and the recent transaction price ranged from 150 yuan to 450 yuan. In March this year, Xianyu released data showing that the platform's average daily transaction volume has exceeded 1 billion yuan.

On-site visit to see how 10,000 tons of old furniture are reused

Recently, the reporter came to the Shuangliu sorting center of Sichuan Yingu Carbon Sink Renewable Resources Co., Ltd. in Shuangliu District, Chengdu. In a warehouse of about 15,000 square meters, various waste washing machines, refrigerators, plastics, fabrics, etc. are neatly stacked in piles. There are trucks coming and going at the door of the warehouse, weighing, loading and unloading.

What is unloaded is all kinds of "junk" that have been recycled, and what is taken away is renewable resources that have been finely sorted. Xiong Jianyin, the person in charge of the company, introduced that the entire sorting center recycles about 300 kinds of waste products. After entering the sorting center, the waste products will be classified and sorted first, and then disassembled, crushed, and packaged according to different categories, and sent to downstream enterprises for further processing.

Last year alone, the company recycled about 10,000 tons of waste furniture and about 350,000 waste household appliances. After disassembly, the springs and other metals in the old furniture will be sent to downstream metal smelting enterprises, and the wood will be transported to power plants as fuel for power generation; the waste household appliances will be directly sent to regular electric waste dismantling enterprises for further processing.

Enterprise Viewpoint Circular economy enterprises usher in great business opportunities

At present, Yin Gu Carbon has put about 12,000 recycling equipment boxes in various communities in Chengdu, built about 300 community convenience recycling stations and 4 green sorting centers with a total area of more than 50,000 square meters. On the data screen in the office area of Silver Valley Carbon Sink, the recycling volume, recycling categories, recycling prices and carbon reduction of each station and sorting center are displayed in real time, including the real-time transportation status of each new energy logistics and transportation vehicle.

Xiong Jianyin said: "Through the construction of the "point-station-warehouse-sorting center" system of renewable resources, matching professional logistics and digital operation and management system of the entire industrial chain, we have formed a four-level recycling and disposal network, and are gradually expanding the scale and regional scope of recycling." In his opinion, the main reason why no one is willing to recycle furniture that costs thousands of yuan is that the recycling manpower, logistics transportation and disassembly costs are too high, requiring a larger disassembly site and manpower. However, these big guys that the mobile "waste collectors" look down on still have huge economic and social value after large-scale recycling.

"Now the country is vigorously promoting the "replacement + recycling" model in order to promote the recycling of resources. In the future, there will be some specific policies to promote leading enterprises to take the lead in trial. With the support of policies, our industry can really be done." In this regard, Xiong Jianyin is full of confidence.

Sichuan Action: 26 Million Old Machines Enter Replacement Cycle

In March this year, the State Council issued the "Action Plan for Promoting Large-Scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-in", which clearly proposed to implement the consumer goods trade-in action, carry out the trade-in of automobiles and home appliances, and promote the replacement of home decoration consumer goods.

Specific to Sichuan, the relevant person in charge of the Department of Commerce recently responded to netizens' questions on the official website of the provincial government, saying that Sichuan has carried out the last round of home appliances going to the countryside for more than ten years, and many home appliances have exceeded their designed service life, and some have even reached 20 years. "Over-service" has a great safety hazard. It is estimated that there are about 150 million refrigerators, televisions, washing machines, air conditioners, water heaters, smoke stoves, water purifiers, and sweeping robots in Sichuan, and about 26 million old machines have entered the replacement cycle. If 4 million units are replaced each year, the scale of replacement will exceed 5 billion yuan.

"We will actively promote the introduction of home appliance trade-in policies, coordinate all links in the whole chain, guide sales and recycling companies to form a joint force, and benefit more consumers." The person in charge said.

Extended reading

Multiple cases of increased subsidies for new replacements have accelerated the opening of the trillion-yuan consumer market

While the national policy is promoting, various regions have also launched "renewal season" consumption promotion activities, and home appliances, automobiles, etc. have become the main areas.

For example, Hangzhou, Zhejiang announced that it would launch a home appliance renewal season from March to April, fully linking platforms, home appliance companies and live e-commerce to launch home appliance trade-in activities to benefit the people; the Luohu District Government of Shenzhen, Guangdong launched the 2024 spring car purchase benefits. In addition to car purchase discounts, eligible trade-ins can also enjoy a thousand yuan subsidy.

At the same time, many companies actively participated. On March 26, Suning.com joined hands with more than 30 home appliance manufacturers to sign the "Joint Announcement on the Trade-in Action" to carry out the home appliance trade-in action.

On April 1, Chery, Weilai and other car companies announced that they would launch a subsidy replacement season policy in response to the "old for new" policy call.

According to the data of the National Development and Reform Commission, by the end of 2023, the number of civilian cars in China will reach 336 million, and the number of home appliances such as refrigerators, washing machines, and air conditioners will exceed 3 billion. The replacement of cars and home appliances will create a trillion-scale market space.

Xiong Yingying, reporter of West China Metropolis Daily-Cover News

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