"A discarded mineral water bottle is obviously easier to enter the recycling system than a plastic bag of laundry detergent and potato chips." According to Wu Chang, technical director of Dow's packaging and specialty plastics business unit in Asia Pacific, the recycling link of single-material plastic products such as mineral water bottles is clear, with high availability and low reprocessing costs, which are welcomed by the market. However, flexible plastic products such as washing powder and potato chips are often made of multi-layer plastic and glue bonding, which is difficult to recycle.
In 2021, the material recycling volume of waste plastics in China will be about 1900 million tons, with a recycling rate of 31%, which is nearly 1.74 times the average materialized recycling rate of global waste plastics, and the recycling capacity accounts for about 70% of the world, and 100% domestic material recycling has been achieved.
However, it is worth noting that the recycling rate of plastic products in some parts of the country is low, and the recycling rate of flexible packaging is lower, which also makes it a major "killer" of environmental pollution. As a technician, Wu Chang has focused on the field of chemical materials for nearly 30 years and has been constantly trying to make breakthroughs.
From April 4 to 17 this year, "CHINAPLAS20" was held in Shenzhen, the exhibition lasted for four days, and more than 2023,3900 rubber and plastic industry chain enterprises from all over the world participated in the exhibition. At the venue, many industry insiders mentioned to the first financial reporter that every year the exhibition brings together many plastic upstream enterprises, and the innovation of upstream enterprises can often play a good leading role in the technological improvement of the entire industry chain.
Industry experts also said that many new technologies have been cooperated with many brands with strong awareness of environmental protection and energy saving, and hope that the whole industry chain can form a joint force, take out the best technology, and form a larger number of cooperation.
The plastic recycling dilemma
China is the world's packaging manufacturing and consumption country, plastic packaging in the total output value of the packaging industry has exceeded 30%, in food, beverage, daily necessities and industrial and agricultural production in various fields play an irreplaceable role. In recent years, China's plastic packaging industry has been in a steady growth trend, ranking second only to paper packaging in the proportion of packaging product structure.
However, at present, for waste flexible packaging, it is often treated by incineration and landfill, and the industry generally calls for recycling to truly solve the problem of plastic resource utilization, so as to promote the realization of carbon peak and carbon neutrality.
Why is flexible packaging so difficult to recycle? Wu Chang said that taking washing powder packaging as an example, in general, laundry detergent packaging bags look like a thin and smooth plastic bag, but even traditional laundry detergent packaging bags are three layers of plastic and two layers of glue to complete the structure. Among these three layers of plastic, there should be at least two more materials used in it, the most traditional may be PET, there may be some polyethylene in the middle, and generally two layers of glue are needed to composite the three layers of materials together.
"But in fact, PET and polyethylene are completely incompatible, and it is difficult to recycle such products." According to the current common application, these materials must still be used in the production of this bag. When the laundry detergent is used up, the plastic bags cannot be recycled and may eventually be incinerated in the form of dry waste. Wu Chang said.
"On the other hand, in the current plastic packaging, how to effectively classify different materials and then recycle these materials, there is currently no good solution on the market." Wu Chang said, "If it is a single-material plastic product, we can see the value behind it, but for such multi-material composite products, some materials can be recycled, some are not recyclable, how to separate these materials, there is no ability yet, or there are enough profit points for enterprises to participate in it." ”
Wu Chang and his team have also been hoping to make a breakthrough in this field - so that products with complex multilayer materials can be completely recycled without changing their use through technological transformation.
"In recent years, we have been making bags with only two layers of material, that is, the traditional three-layer material into only two layers of material, and although it is a two-layer material, through different processing technologies, its chemical composition is polyethylene, which can be completely recycled." Wu Chang said.
The first financial reporter saw that in the products that the company has listed, this two-layer polyethylene packaging bag is affixed with the word "back", which also means that the bag can be thrown into the "recyclable" trash can for recycling after use.
At the same time, during Chinaplas, Dow introduced a breakthrough vacuum-plated aluminum-plated polyethylene solution with ultra-high barrier properties that meet recyclability requirements while ensuring shelf life for packaged food.
It can be seen that the advanced technology in the industry is constantly developed and applied, but in fact, the penetration rate is general, and it still needs to be accumulated and tested for a long time to achieve a wider range of applications, among which the high cost cannot be ignored.
On this issue, Wu Chang believes that this is like a competition between the student group and the adult group, all the plastic products on the market are the adult group, which has undergone countless growth and transformation to the current scale. The entry of new technologies and new products, although advanced technology, but still elementary school students, if you want to achieve the results of the adult group (market share), this also needs enough attention and training, enough soil for it to grow.
"At present, the application cost is indeed high. But the cost must be related to the volume. When it is accepted by more people and has enough volume, more people will be willing to invest in such products, and the cost problem will no longer be a problem. Wu Chang said, "Although he is still a primary school student, he has long legs and hands, so he can swim fast." ”
In March 2022, the resumed fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly adopted the Draft Resolution on Ending Plastic Pollution, which plans to reach an international legally binding agreement by 3 to promote the global fight against plastic pollution.
Data show that in the 2016 years of 2021~6, China has achieved a total of 1 million tons of material recycling of various waste plastics, with a recycling value of more than 08 billion yuan, if the recycling of 6000 ton of waste plastic is equivalent to saving 1 tons of oil, the cumulative saving of oil exploitation and consumption in 3 years is 6 million tons. It is estimated that the recycling of waste plastics in China will reach about 3.3 million tons in 2025, with a recycling rate of more than 2750%.
The popularization of new technologies also requires the joint efforts of the industry
Recently, the "Plastic Recycling Industry Joint Green Action Alliance 2022 Green Action White Paper" proposed that with the improvement of global waste plastic recycling technology and production capacity, it is expected that by 2030, the global waste plastic recycling rate is expected to reach 50%, of which physical recycling accounts for 22%, nearly doubled, and chemical recycling accounts for 17%, with huge room for growth.
The plastic cycle is divided into five main stages: plastic production, plastic consumption, plastic waste, plastic recycling and recycling.
In the face of urgent environmental protection needs, for solving the problem of plastic recycling, Wang Li, global president of Covestro's engineering plastics division, suggested in an interview with the first financial reporter that we can start from four aspects: First, policies and regulations need very systematic guidelines. Because plastic applications are very extensive, how to systematically and large-scale plastic recycling into a long-term and economically effective recycling industry chain requires very clear policy guidance at the national level to truly do plastic recycling.
Secondly, the reconstruction of the industrial chain is needed. In the entire plastic recycling chain, someone needs to recycle, clean, disassemble, and process, which is a process of rebuilding a new industrial chain and needs to be able to find a suitable entry point. If the partners in these industrial chains cannot achieve profitability, there is no incentive to move forward.
Third, it requires the efforts of the whole society. People need to truly recognize the value of plastic recycling in order to be able to participate wholeheartedly. For example, when buying a product, if it is 1 cent more expensive than an ordinary water bottle, are everyone willing to accept the water bottle produced by recycled materials? Recognize this value? These also take a lot of time to popularize knowledge.
Finally, in terms of technology research and development, it is also necessary to innovate research and development to find a more economical and scientific way of recycling.
Liu Jiaqi, director of the Environmental Resources and Energy Law Research Center of Liaoning University, also told the first financial reporter that on the one hand, from the perspective of the industry, it is necessary to further develop and promote more environmentally friendly and economical recycling technologies and processes; On the other hand, the government also needs to provide institutional guarantees for industrial upgrading, especially measures to encourage and support the research and development and promotion of new technologies and processes. (Yicai Author: Huang Qiong)