Fangdai Village, Yucun Town, Jingde County, is full of bamboo forests. Photo by reporter Tang Chao
Hongzhan Bamboo and Wood Farmers Professional Cooperative in Suncun Town, Fanchang District, Wuhu City, villagers are drying processed bamboo strips. Photo by Lu Junyuan, correspondent of this newspaper
Bamboo bowls and chopsticks, bamboo furniture, bamboo handicrafts...... Since the beginning of this year, our province has made full use of the rich advantages of bamboo resources in southern and western Anhui, vigorously carried out the application and promotion of "bamboo instead of plastic", and issued the "Implementation Plan for Accelerating the Development of "Bamboo instead of Plastic" to improve the added value and market share of bamboo products, drive the development of mountainous industries and increase the income of the masses, and help the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development.
Small bamboo breeds big industries
In Xiachuan Village, Meijie Town, Guichi District, Chizhou City, the emerald green bamboo forests all over the mountains are swaying in the wind.
Early in the morning, villager Hu Desheng began to cut bamboo, and the cut bamboo will be transported to the bamboo products deep processing base of Anhui Hongye Group for processing. "If you cut bamboo in front of your own house, you can earn 40,000 or 50,000 yuan a year." Hu Desheng said happily.
Hongye Group is a national forestry key leading enterprise specializing in the deep processing and export sales of bamboo products, mainly producing bamboo and rattan handicrafts, craft bamboo chopsticks, bamboo straws, ice cream sticks, bamboo fiber and other bamboo products, products are exported to more than 110 countries and regions in Southeast Asia, Europe, America, etc., with an average of 6 million bamboo straws sold to domestic and foreign markets every day.
"Bamboo products can replace many plastic products, and the company can currently produce 2 billion straws per year, which can reduce the use of nearly 10,000 tons of plastic and reduce 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions." The relevant person in charge of Hongye Group said. Through the method of "company + base + farmer", Hongye Group currently processes 100,000 tons of bamboo annually, and has built China's largest production and export base for bamboo sticks, bamboo chopsticks and bamboo straws.
Bamboo is a renewable, recyclable, degradable high-quality environmental protection material, its "substitution" of plastics can reduce the generation of plastic waste from the source, is an effective way to strengthen the whole chain of plastic pollution governance, is a specific measure to realize the value of ecological products, taking into account ecological benefits and economic benefits, to promote carbon peak, carbon neutrality to provide support.
"Replacing plastic with bamboo" has brought new opportunities to the development of Chizhou's bamboo industry. Chizhou is the first batch of "bamboo instead of plastic" application and promotion base in Anhui Province, with an existing bamboo forest area of 600,000 mu and 24 townships with a bamboo area of more than 10,000 mu in the city. Relying on bamboo resources, today, the bamboo industry has become one of the important industries in Chizhou City, integrating forest ecology, understory economy, manufacturing industry, and food industry, and is also associated with circular economy industry and emission reduction industry.
A bamboo can be grown in 3 to 5 years, and the bamboo can be successfully afforested at one time and cut down every year. Well protected and can be used in perpetuity. Our province has abundant bamboo resources, bamboo forest area of more than 600 acres, ranking seventh in the country, there are more than 1,200 bamboo processing enterprises, the development of "bamboo instead of plastic" has good conditions and great potential. Chizhou City, Huangshan City, Ningguo City, Guangde City, and Yuexi County were selected into the pilot list of "bamboo instead of plastic" application and promotion.
In recent years, Anhui has developed the bamboo industry according to local conditions, vigorously protected and cultivated high-quality bamboo forest resources, improved the management level of bamboo forests, and emerged leading enterprises represented by Chizhou Hongye Group and Guangde Sentai wood plastics, etc., to promote the development of hundreds of products such as bamboo daily necessities, bamboo building materials, bamboo crafts, etc., and the industrial system of "bamboo instead of plastic" is gradually improving.
The bottleneck needs to be broken urgently
The "bamboo instead of plastic" industry is in its infancy, and there are still bottlenecks such as small scale, low recognition, high cost, and difficult technical breakthroughs. Among them, the high cost is the biggest problem in the development of the "bamboo instead of plastic" industry.
The bamboo products processing factory in Nanshui Village, Meishan Town, Jinzhai County, is busy, and the villagers are busy drying bamboo products. Li Wang, the person in charge of the processing plant, introduced that the processing plant mainly produces semi-finished products such as silk strips and chopsticks of various specifications and finished products for medical and daily use cotton swabs. The daily processing of bamboo is more than 30 tons at full capacity, and the annual sales are more than 20 million yuan.
Meishan Town is located in the hinterland of Dabie Mountain, with humid climate and abundant rainfall, suitable for the growth of moso bamboo, especially in Nanshui Village, which is rich in moso bamboo resources, with more than 8,000 acres of moso bamboo, but limited by the steep slope of the mountain, inconvenient transportation, it is difficult for bamboo to go down the mountain, the transportation cost is high, and there is no deep processing enterprise. "The price of moso bamboo has also continued to fall, from 700 yuan per ton before 2014 to about 500 yuan per ton now." Li Wang said.
Jinzhai County is one of the ten key bamboo counties in the province, with an area of 280,000 mu of bamboo forests in the county, including 250,000 mu of bamboo. In recent years, practical factors such as difficulty in selling bamboo, low utilization rate of bamboo processing, and low efficiency have restricted the high-quality development of the bamboo industry, affecting the income of forest farmers and bamboo processing enterprises. According to reports, there are more than 50 bamboo processing enterprises in the county, most of which are small and medium-sized enterprises, mainly producing semi-finished products such as bamboo wire drawing and bamboo chips, and the processing varieties are relatively single, the deep processing capacity is weak, and the added value of the products is not high. In addition, the degree of mechanization of harvesting moso bamboo is low and the labor intensity is high, resulting in high production costs.
To this end, the county has introduced a policy of incentives and subsidies for the bamboo industry, and implemented incentives and subsidies for the processing of semi-finished bamboo products, the sales of finished products, and the construction of transportation roads; Strive for the project to support enterprises to transform and upgrade equipment and improve the production capacity of bamboo boards; Strengthen cooperation with the International Center for Bamboo and Rattan and Anhui Agricultural University to provide technical support for the bamboo industry. Through multiple measures, it is difficult for bamboo farmers to sell bamboo. At present, Jinzhai County has 8 bamboo forest townships of more than 10,000 acres. In 2023, more than 8 million moso bamboos will be processed and sold, with a comprehensive output value of more than 700 million yuan, driving forest farmers to increase their income by more than 15,000 households.
Strengthen intensive deep processing
With low-carbon environmental protection and industrial development on the one hand, how to solve the development problem of "replacing plastic with bamboo"?
In Dongting Township, Guangde City, the villagers rely on 10,000 acres of bamboo sea, according to local conditions to develop bamboo products processing industry, has cultivated more than 40 processing enterprises, and to the direction of deep processing development, the production of bamboo fans, bamboo curtains, bamboo bar and other bamboo products have a greater market reputation. At the same time, we will increase investment in new bamboo-plastic environmental protection materials, bamboo fiber deep processing and other fields, and the bamboo industry will gradually move towards green high-end.
The "Implementation Plan for Accelerating the Development of "Bamboo instead of Plastic" clarifies 4 key tasks and 12 specific measures to promote the efficient management of "bamboo instead of plastic" resources, excellent and refined products, wide application of bamboo products and deep integration of bamboo culture.
In terms of efficient management of bamboo resources, we will carry out the construction of national and provincial bamboo germplasm resource banks, promote the construction of basic supporting facilities such as bamboo forest roads and bamboo mountain mechanized management pilots, and add or improve more than 10 new business entities every year; In terms of making bamboo products better and more refined, key counties in the bamboo industry are encouraged to plan and establish small and micro parks for the primary processing of modern bamboo with controllable pollution according to local conditions, and create a number of demonstration counties for the high-quality development of the whole industrial chain of "replacing plastic with bamboo"; In terms of the wide application of bamboo products, we will carry out bamboo product promotion and docking activities in major bamboo producing areas, include "bamboo instead of plastic" products in the scope of government procurement support, and build 5 to 10 "bamboo instead of plastic" application and promotion pilots; In terms of the in-depth integration of bamboo culture, we will inherit and develop intangible cultural heritage such as bamboo weaving and bamboo fans, encourage the construction of bamboo cultural and creative centers and theme hotels in various places, create a number of bamboo industry experience pilots, and support the construction of a number of bamboo ecological science education pilots.
The plan also requires to strengthen overall coordination, increase fiscal and tax financial support, strengthen standard construction, strengthen land security, and increase talent training efforts in five aspects, and strive to maintain the bamboo forest area of the province at more than 400,000 hectares by 2027, more than 100 leading enterprises in the bamboo industry above the provincial level, and the comprehensive output value of the bamboo industry will reach 60 billion yuan.
"To promote 'bamboo instead of plastic' and promote the innovation and development of the bamboo industry, we must not only rely on the guidance of the government, but also need to be led by the market and enterprises." The relevant person in charge of the Provincial Forestry Bureau said that "bamboo instead of plastic" is a substitute for plastic, which fundamentally requires deep processing of bamboo, expanding application scenarios and increasing market share. Only by overcoming the "roadblocks" such as high labor costs and limited level of intensive processing can the bamboo industry become bigger and stronger, give better play to the economic and ecological benefits, and the development prospects of "replacing plastic with bamboo" will be broader.
Source: Anhui Daily
Review: Ma Xiangyu Editor: Hu Peilin Proofreader: Zhang Jianping