Youth Economic Theory
"Hot potato"? How can second-hand large pieces of furniture "have a home"
The recycling of large pieces of furniture has become a "growth trouble" in social and economic progress, and its recycling is an inevitable trend.
The government should adopt corresponding policies to coordinate the establishment of a complete chain of large furniture recycling.
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Can not sell the price, discarded as "no way", instead of being "charged"... As the garbage sorting work continues to advance, the disposal of large pieces of furniture seems to be a "hot potato" in the hands of some people.
With the continuous improvement of people's living standards, the requirements for the quality of life are getting higher and higher, and the speed of iterative upgrading of furniture continues to accelerate.
However, in many areas, bulky garbage needs to be thrown away separately, and where to go for waste furniture has become a difficult problem for many people.
Residents threw furniture at night
"It was secretly released at night, but the environmental sanitation took it away." Liu Tong (pseudonym), who lives in Fengtai District, Beijing, wanted to put a piece of used furniture at the garbage sorting point of the community, but was told that the place could not be stored, so he looked for it. No special storage point.
So he took the night to put the old furniture outside the complex, and soon after, the furniture was taken away.
He said: "You have to get it out at night, (for people) to see it, and you have to get it away."
In some areas, it is not uncommon for large pieces of garbage such as waste furniture to be piled up indiscriminately.
According to a report from the Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Bureau of Xingyi City, Guizhou Province, since August this year, various branch bureaus have prevented a total of 85 cases of disorderly piles. Among them, decoration garbage and large pieces of old furniture have a more prominent impact on street image.
Law enforcement officers requested immediate rectification and contacted the sanitation department to clean up unmanaged garbage.
In response to the problems of residents being far away from storage sites for bulky garbage, difficult to transport them by themselves, and lack of processing time, "disposal" services have gradually emerged.
Earlier, Wang Wei, the founder of Cleaning Brothers, who has been engaged in the recycling of second-hand furniture for a long time, discovered that residents have some large items that have no value for recycling but need to be disposed of urgently.
In 2019, with the increasing number of such cases, he specializes in the business of clearing and transporting bulky garbage.
According to him, the cleaning staff can receive about 7-8 orders a day, and the price of each order ranges from tens of yuan to 100 yuan, and a certain amount of handling fees may be added.
There are many sofas and mattresses in Qingyun. He found that many people who choose Qingyun live in buildings without elevators.
Lin Haobin, the marketing manager of Yidai's waste sorting and recycling platform, said that in 2019, when the large furniture recycling business was launched on Hunan Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai, the order volume has increased rapidly.
He introduced that at present, the main group of the platform "throwing" is the young people in the community, aged between 20-45 years old. Beds and mattresses are recycled the most, and the cost per order is about 130 yuan.
The drop-off fees of different companies vary greatly.
Master Li, who is engaged in door-to-door removal of bulky garbage in Shanghai, said that it takes 600 yuan to recycle a set of sofas (1 3-seater sofa and 2 single-seater sofas).
Another master Li, who is engaged in garbage removal in Beijing, said that it costs 800 yuan to clean up a 3-seater fabric sofa and a 5-seater fabric sofa.
Currently, free door-to-door cleaning and transportation of bulky garbage is implemented in some areas.
In more places, whether it is self-clearing or choosing the "official" clearing route, more or less fees are required.
Many people cannot accept payment for this, and very few people choose to litter or sneak.
Recycling costs may be higher than buying new furniture
The removal and recycling of large pieces of furniture are often linked together. After the furniture is pulled to a designated location, it begins to be dismantled and sorted.
The dismantled wood, iron wire, etc. enter the corresponding recycling system, and the sponge, waste fabric, etc. enter the garbage disposal system.
According to Wang Wei, under normal circumstances, the disassembly time for a set of furniture is about 20-30 minutes, and the recyclable parts are often less.
Take used mattresses as an example. The sellable part is mainly wire, which can be sold for 35 yuan under better conditions.
The cost of recycling and transporting large pieces of furniture mainly includes site fees, vehicle fees, labor costs, and garbage disposal fees.
"Sometimes, the comprehensive cost of recycling an old piece of furniture is even more expensive than buying a new piece of furniture." Wang Wei said.
For example, it costs 300 yuan to buy a new, non-famous brand of 3-seater fabric sofa on an e-commerce platform, and the cost of recycling a similar one may be higher.
Wang Wei clearly felt that the profit margins of Beijing's second-hand home furnishing market seemed to be constantly being "squeezed."
He said: "It's not as easy as before 2020."
Master Li from Beijing said that under the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in 2020, some second-hand furniture markets in Beijing have closed, and many furniture has not been sold until now.
In Wang Wei's view, on the one hand, most Beijing residents still choose to buy new furniture; on the other hand, Beijing's second-hand furniture market continues to expand and expand to Hebei and other places.
The place where Wang Wei's recycled furniture was placed has been moved from the earliest Beijing Fourth Ring Road to the side of the Sixth Ring Road, and the transportation costs are also rising. Each additional kilometer away will consume an additional RMB 1 in oil.
As a result, many clearing companies are more picky about the items that are recycled or cleared, and are more willing to choose complete sets, good color, wood or leather furniture for recycling. This type of furniture can directly enter the second-hand market.
Among them, Mr. Wang from a large-size garbage removal company in Beijing said that the recycling of fabric sofas depends on the specific conditions of the sofa. If you can sell it, you will receive it. "If you can't sell it, you can find someone else."
Establish a full chain of large furniture recycling
At present, in some densely populated cities, the amount of waste furniture produced is relatively large, and the demand for corresponding recycling treatment is also increasing.
However, on the one hand, residents are unwilling to pay for furniture recycling, and on the other hand, the cost of recycling remains high. It is necessary to further increase the enthusiasm of recycling.
Liu Jianguo, a professor at the School of Environment of Tsinghua University, said that at present, the recycling of large pieces of furniture is a "growth trouble" in the social and economic progress.
Social development has entered a stage, and many countries will face similar problems.
This also precisely shows that my country's economy has been developed to a large extent, and the consumption level of residents is constantly escalating.
Recycling of large pieces of furniture is an inevitable trend.
Liu Jianguo suggested that the government should adopt corresponding policies to coordinate the establishment of a complete chain of large furniture recycling that covers placing-transportation-centralized dismantling-reuse.
That is to say, set up large furniture distribution points in residential areas, solve the transportation and dismantling of the intermediate links, and solve the disposal problems after dismantling, and solve the relationship between garbage disposal and recycling.
At the same time, Liu Jianguo said that every link in the chain involves cost issues, and a fund guarantee mechanism must be established.
From the basic principles of environmental governance, generally speaking, the producer is responsible and the polluter pays.
Residents, as generators, can pay a certain fee at the transportation end.
Liu Jianguo reminded that attention should be paid to improving the efficiency of recycling and utilization of waste furniture.
In this way, if the front-end generator pays, and the back-end opens a part of the market, the revenue of the entire system will increase, and the cost will be reduced accordingly.
In fact, Beijing, Shanghai, Fujian and many other places have introduced many measures, such as the establishment of bulky waste storage points, waste collection teams, and bulky waste treatment centers.
Among them, Shanghai has a garbage transfer station that specializes in the recycling of large furniture; Fuzhou, Fujian has launched a large garbage recycling online platform, where citizens can put it on their own or make an appointment. Notify the properties of each community.
Residents are also taking the initiative to allow used furniture to enter the recycling system, and some people have set their sights on the second-hand trading platform.
On a second-hand platform, there are not many cases where branded second-hand sofas are sold for 0.01 yuan or 0.1 yuan, and buyers come to pick them up.
Some old communities lack leisure facilities, and old large pieces of furniture are repaired so as to be used by residents for rest.
In Lin Haobin's view, it is necessary to further consider how to reduce the cost of residents.
He said that large pieces of furniture are low-value recyclables. If the order density is large enough and the more complete the city's disposal back-end construction, the cost can be further reduced, thereby benefiting the residents.
In order to reduce the cost of clearing and transportation for the common people, some streets and communities in Beijing recently launched "single-line clearing", and when the piled garbage is enough to fill a clearing truck, it will be uniformly pulled to the transfer station for sorting and processing.
The construction of large furniture recycling chains has a long way to go. At present, various places are making efforts and are still exploring.
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Zhao Limei Source: China Youth Daily