Southern Finance and Economics all-media reporters Guo Xiaojie, Li Deshangyu, and intern Zhou Zhou reported from Guangzhou
450 years, which is about the long time it takes for a plastic bottle to completely degrade in its natural environment. Plastic products are ubiquitous in daily life, from small plastic bottles, packaging bags, take-out boxes to large electronic products, auto parts, building materials, etc., the wide application of plastics has brought a heavy burden to the global environment.
"Global War Plastic" is the theme of the 55th Earth Day on April 22, 2024. The prevention and control of plastic pollution has become one of the major environmental challenges faced by the international community.
A few days ago, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released the latest information on the fourth intergovernmental negotiating meeting of the "plastics treaty", based on the consensus on the growing global plastic pollution, the fourth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (INC4) will be held in late April this year.
China is a major producer and consumer of plastics. Since the implementation of the plastic restriction order in 2008, the mainland has successively issued a series of national and local normative documents related to plastic pollution control, setting off an upsurge of plastic reduction in the whole society. In 2024, "plastic pollution control" will appear in the government work report for the first time, alongside solid waste management.
In the context of the "global war on plastics", how should China respond to the new plastic pollution control problems brought about by the changes in economic structure and the rise of the Internet industry?
Express delivery has become a big consumer of plastic waste
With the rapid development of the Internet in China, the two major consumer formats of express delivery and takeaway have emerged, and the express delivery industry has become a new major producer of plastic waste, which has also brought a large amount of carbon dioxide emissions.
According to the "Comprehensive Treatment Plan for Takeaway Plastic Pollution" issued by environmental protection agencies to get rid of plastic, the total amount of takeaway plastic packaging waste in mainland China is in the range of 460,000 tons ~ 1.68 million tons, and it is conservatively estimated that the annual carbon emissions of China's takeaway plastic packaging are about one million to two or three million tons.
A report by Sinopec and the Institute of Ecological Civilization and Circular Economy of Tongji University predicts that by 2025, the cumulative carbon emissions of disposable plastic bags in the express delivery industry will reach 6.06 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, and in 2030, carbon emissions will reach 7.61 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
Plastic reduction in the field of food delivery and express delivery is of great significance to solve the problem of plastic pollution control in the mainland, promote the green transformation of the economy, and achieve the "double carbon" goal as soon as possible.
In recent years, both the central and local governments have been actively seeking countermeasures to control plastic pollution in takeaway and express delivery. In 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for Plastic Pollution Control", pointing out that it is necessary to actively promote the reduction of plastic production and use at the source.
Taking the takeaway industry as an example, Li Qian, the policy commissioner for getting rid of plastic, told the Southern Finance and Economics all-media reporter that at present, many takeaway platforms are based on source reduction, trying to promote source reduction by advocating the reduction of excessive packaging and the implementation of "no tableware".
In addition to reducing the amount of plastic waste at the source, recycling is also an important measure to reduce the amount of plastic waste.
Recycling is the reuse of takeaway tableware, lunch boxes, and outer packaging many times, just like the utensils used in dine-in, which can be used again after cleaning and disinfection.
It is understood that at present, the pilot and application of circulating lunch boxes are mainly concentrated in North America, Europe and other places, but they are still in the exploration stage and have not yet formed a system and large-scale application.
Takeaway plastic waste often carries oil stains and food residues, and the cleaning cost is too high to be reused. According to the Research Report on the Green and Low-Carbon Development of China's Plastics Industry by the Energy Research Institute of Peking University, only about 10% of plastic products consumed in China were effectively recycled and reused in 2020, and nearly 50% were landfilled or scattered in the natural environment, or greenhouse gas emissions were generated by incineration.
He Guojun, professor of economics at the University of Hong Kong and director of the ESG Institute of the University of Hong Kong, told reporters that because the cost of recyclable lunch boxes is much higher than that of traditional disposable lunch boxes, most consumers have become accustomed to using disposable lunch boxes.
The express delivery industry's plastic reduction action is also moving forward in difficulty.
"Since 2015, Jingdong Logistics has 'slimmed' the tape, reducing the width from 53mm to 45mm, and standardizing the use of sealing tape to prohibit layer by layer winding, further reducing the amount of consumables, and reducing the use of tape by more than 500 million meters per year. He Guojun said that many companies have begun to implement measures to reduce packaging layers, such as removing inner packaging, simplifying outer packaging design, or using integrated packaging design, which not only protects goods, but also reduces the use of packaging materials.
In addition to source reduction, the use of express recyclable packaging is also gradually promoted in practice as an alternative product and model for disposable packaging.
In 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission and other eight departments issued the "Notice on Accelerating the Green Transformation of Express Packaging", which for the first time put forward the application scale target of recyclable express packaging, that is, to reach 10 million by 2025.
Li Qian said that recyclable express packaging has significant environmental and economic benefits compared with disposable express packaging. Not only is it expected to significantly reduce the environmental impact, but it will also create new value creation opportunities and jobs as an innovative business model.
According to the "Research on the Large-scale Application of Recyclable Express Packaging" released by Getting rid of plastic constraints, when the number of cycles of recyclable express packaging is greater than 28 times, the use of recycled packaging express boxes will produce economic benefits. When the number of cycles of recycled express packaging is 6 times, the use of recycled packaging express boxes can produce carbon emission reduction benefits.
However, China's express recycling packaging is currently only piloted in B-end enterprises, and has not yet been rolled out in C-end, and there are still many challenges in practice.
In Shanghai, a type of recirculating box called R-Box is being piloted in some areas. R-box recycling box is Fuhai (Shanghai) Internet of Things Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Fuhai Company") independent research and development of circular express packaging box, the company's chairman Yan Haiying told reporters that the current application of recycling box in C-end users is still limited to some small closed-loop scenarios, the number of applications is not large. In order to achieve large-scale application, it is necessary not only to have basic conditions such as product safety and environmental protection, information technology guarantee, and multiple use, but also to consider the unboxing experience of C-end users, privacy protection and other conditions. At present, the biggest challenge is a series of problems related to the recovery of the user side, credit and incentive mechanism, and solving these problems is not something that can be completed by a competent department or a single enterprise, and it is necessary for the relevant competent units to formulate policies and regulations horizontally, and the relevant enterprises in the whole link to vertically pull through the application process, and the whole society can work together to close the business scenario.
Li Qian also said that the use of recyclable express boxes involves many departments such as postal, commerce, and ecology, and its large-scale application involves source production enterprises, express logistics companies, e-commerce platforms and even retail commodity brands.
600 million tonnes of bamboo could reduce carbon emissions by about 4 billion tonnes
In addition to promoting source reduction, finding plastic alternatives is also one of the main directions of plastic reduction exploration in recent years.
In 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for Plastic Pollution Control", proposing that the environmental impact of bamboo and wood products, paper products, degradable plastic products and other resources throughout the life cycle should be fully considered.
In fact, since the promulgation of the plastic restriction order in 2008, paper straws and tableware have been promoted in the milk tea, coffee industry and many large catering companies. According to McDonald's official website, in 2020, 100% of the paper food packaging used by McDonald's China was made of base paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
Yan Haiying said that Fuhai Company, as a technology company that explores the overall solution of circular packaging, is currently advocating more "plastic removal", that is, trying not to use plastic in product packaging, but using durable fabrics, paper products and other materials instead.
He Guojun said that paper packaging has always been the first choice for green packaging due to its renewability and easy recyclability. Reducing the amount of packaging material used by optimizing designs, such as using single-layer instead of multi-layer cardboard, or designing more compact packaging shapes to reduce wasted space, not only reduces the consumption of raw materials, but also reduces energy consumption during transportation.
In addition to promoting "paper instead of plastic", bamboo has also become a new plastic alternative that the industry is looking forward to in recent years.
In 2022, at the 25th anniversary of INBAR and the opening ceremony of the 2nd World Bamboo and Rattan Congress, the mainland and INBAR jointly launched the initiative of "replacing plastic with bamboo". In 2023, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments issued the "Three-year Action Plan for Accelerating the Development of "Bamboo instead of Plastic".
He Guojun said that one of the important environmental characteristics of bamboo products is its biodegradability. Bamboo materials can decompose quickly under natural conditions, and their degradation time in the natural environment is greatly shortened compared with plastic products. If 600 million tonnes of bamboo were used annually instead of plastic, it was estimated that around 4 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions would be reduced.
"The upstream of the bamboo industry includes bamboo and its extracts, and the midstream includes bamboo building materials, bamboo food, bamboo tableware and other bamboo products, and the downstream applications are wide, including but not limited to papermaking, tourism, home furnishing and other fields. He Guojun said that "bamboo instead of plastic" can drive the development of agriculture, industry, service industry and other related industries, form a bamboo industry chain, improve the added value of products, promote the coordination and development of regional economy, and produce huge economic benefits.
At the forum on "Promoting Green Consumption with Bamboo instead of Plastics" held during the 3rd China International Consumer Goods Expo, Sheng Qiuping, Vice Minister of Commerce, said in a video speech that the Ministry of Commerce will work with relevant departments to accelerate the cultivation of the green consumer market, and guide the production and marketing coordination and supply and demand docking between the main body of commerce and trade circulation and the leading enterprises of bamboo products.
However, as a new alternative, "bamboo instead of plastic" also faces many problems in the promotion process.
Many people in the industry believe that at present, the technology of "bamboo instead of plastic" is not yet mature, and bamboo products still need to break through the technical problems of durability and deformation, and the promotion cost is high, and it will take a period of time for large-scale promotion and use.
Li Qian said that "replacing plastic with bamboo" is still in the pilot stage, and the market still needs time and data to verify its plastic reduction effectiveness. In addition, chemical additives are currently used in the processing of bamboo products, and their impact on the environment needs to be studied.
97% of biodegradable plastics are not actually degraded
Compared with "replacing plastic with bamboo", degradable plastic products have entered consumer awareness earlier. At present, degradable plastic bags have been popularized in most supermarkets in China.
In recent years, in addition to supermarket channels, the takeaway express delivery industry is also exploring the promotion of degradable plastics. According to the "Meituan Tsingshan Plan Fifth Anniversary Progress Report", as of August 2022, Meituan has formed a recommended list of three types of green packaging: paper, degradable plastic, and easy to recycle and recycle. The Ele.me survey report pointed out that in terms of alternative means, the popularity of degradable plastic bags has increased significantly, with 44% of merchants purchasing or using degradable plastic packaging, and 37% of merchants planning to purchase/use.
In July 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Circular Economy", proposing to actively and steadily promote degradable plastics according to local conditions.
Many people in the industry believe that the strategy of "actively and prudently promoting" degradable plastic products may be related to the current controversy over the environmental benefits of degradable. Are degradable plastics partially or completely degraded, and what are their specific requirements for the degradation environment and conditions?
According to industry insiders, degradable plastics are divided into biodegradable plastics and oxidative degradable plastics, of which oxidative degradable plastics are actually degraders added on the basis of traditional plastics, and their environmental hazards have yet to be assessed.
In addition, Yan Haiying said that degradable plastics cannot be completely degraded naturally, and the degradation of degradable materials of different technical routes requires certain preconditions or supplementary conditions, some of which need to be composted, and some will face problems such as functional deletion and high cost.
In 2022, Sinopec and Tsinghua University jointly released the "Environmental Impact Assessment and Policy Support Research Project Report on Degradable Plastics", which showed that nearly 97% of degradable plastics went to landfill or incineration, and the proportion that could actually enter industrial compost and anaerobic fermentation treatment was less than 0.01%.
In fact, many foreign regions have been upgrading and optimizing the supervision of degradable products. The 2018 European Plastics Strategy highlights the need for a regulatory framework for plastics with biodegradable and compostable properties. In June 2019, the European Parliament and Council issued the Directive on Reducing the Environmental Impact of Certain Plastic Products, which began to prohibit the use of oxologically degradable plastics, because they do not completely decompose into carbon dioxide, biomass and water, but are broken into microplastics.
Therefore, the development of the technical route of degradable plastic products and the improvement of degradation conditions in the future have also attracted the attention of people in the industry.
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