In July last year, the country launched a vigorous garbage sorting activity. I wonder how the implementation of our city is?

Since I came into contact with the waste plastics industry, I feel guilty every time I see the news of environmental protection, especially when it comes to waste plastics.

From "one of the greatest inventions of mankind" to the world's appeal for limiting the use of plastics, the development of plastics is only more than 100 years old, but waste plastics have become "white pollution" in urgent need of treatment.

Last year, China produced 63 million tons of waste plastics, of which 32% were landfilled, 31% burned and 7% abandoned, and only about 30% of the waste plastics were recycled. Among the waste plastics, pet plastic bottle has the highest recovery rate, and recycled PET is also the most mature recycled plastic product. This product is giving birth to a new market of more than 300 billion yuan.

From bottle to clothes: the rising circular economy

In recent years, Nike brands have announced the use of recyclable materials; Starbucks catering giants have also announced that they will not provide disposable straws; Adidas, Decathlon and other international brands are also planning to replace the original fiber with recycled fiber. Among them, asdas announced that it will fully adopt recycled fiber by 2024. Demand for recycled PET is brewing and exploding!

"The recycled bottles need to be cleaned, sorted, screened and broken, which is the first process for recycling plastic bottles." After cleaning, the broken PET plastic bottle sheet (hereinafter referred to as PET bottle piece) is immediately immersed in the industrial washing tank, and then the bottle cap and label paper suspended on the water surface are separated by water suspension method. PET chips also need to be dried, dehydrated, heated and melted. Finally, the PET chips are made into recycled fibers that can be used to spin clothes and shoes through automatic spinning equipment.

From low end to high end: industrial problems to be solved

We should know that before the domestic waste plastic bottles are low-end products, mainly used as recycled water pipes, plastic barrels and sofa filler.

In the past three years, the implementation of the implementation plan for the reform of the management system for the import of solid waste by banning the entry of foreign waste (hereinafter referred to as the "ban on waste order") has exerted a double impact on environmental protection and rectification, and great changes have taken place in the domestic recycled plastics industry. "Scattered, disorderly and poor" low-end recycled plastics enterprises have also become the focus of environmental rectification.

In 2017, about 80% of domestic recycled plastics enterprises were faced with the embarrassing situation of environmental protection rectification or ban, and tens of thousands of enterprises were faced with intermittent shutdown for rectification. However, the overall market demand for recycled plastics is relatively stable, which leads to the continuous compression of manufacturers' profits.

After the implementation of the "ban on Abolishment order", the upstream and downstream enterprises in this field are facing the situation of small profits or even losses. In order to squeeze profits, enterprises expand to other links, and the boundaries between upstream and downstream enterprises are gradually blurred. At the 23rd China plastics recycling and Recycling Conference, Zheng Kai, President of China synthetic resin Association, said that to change this low profit industry dilemma, enterprises need to seize the needs of customers. Like Nike, Adidas and other brands' demand for high-end recycled PET.

From recycling to packaging: the changing plastic Market

Rebuilding the fine plastic recycling system is the main way to improve the quality of chips. At present, China's plastic bottle recycling system is extensive. In Japan, South Korea and other countries, residents will clean and dry the plastic bottle before recycling, and separate the cap, body and label of the plastic bottle.

This refined recycling method can not only save the sorting work of personnel after recycling plastic bottles, but also reduce the stains and impurities of plastic bottles, and improve the recycling quality of plastic bottles from the source.

In addition, the packaging design of plastic bottles before consumption also has much room for improvement. For example, the popular sprite bottle has a green body, and this colored plastic bottle will make it more difficult to make transparent PET chips after recycling.

The label on some plastic bottles uses non washing adhesive, which needs manual scraping. The residual adhesive will affect the regeneration quality of plastic bottles. In order to fundamentally solve the problem of plastic bottle recycling, it is necessary to build a pre consumer recycling system for plastic products. That is, all plastic products have a unified recyclable standard, so as to reduce the recycling link and cost.