The seven departments jointly issued a document to improve the recycling and disposal system of used household appliances
Where old appliances go, new ones can be bought
"June 18" shopping festival, many people placed orders for new appliances, how to deal with the old old appliances?
Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission and other seven departments jointly issued the "Implementation Plan on Improving the Recycling System of Used Home Appliances to Promote the Renewal and Consumption of Home Appliances" (referred to as the "Plan"), in order to build a standardized and orderly, smooth operation and coordinated and efficient recycling of used home appliances The system determines the direction.
What is the new path for recycling of used household appliances in the future? How will consumers, home appliance manufacturing and sales companies, recycling companies, and individual recyclers be affected? Our reporter conducted an interview.
Eliminate over 100 million waste household appliances every year
In the eyes of outsiders, the acquisition of waste products is dirty and tiring, but in the eyes of individual recycler Lao Zhang, this is a "good job" with not low income. Lao Zhang’s residence is a small bungalow on the outskirts of Beijing. Next to the bungalow is a “small yard” surrounded by construction enclosures, in which old air conditioners and old TVs are piled up.
"I have been in Beijing for 17 years, and I have also done some side-effects such as air-conditioning and fluoride, and changing screens." Lao Zhang introduced that his wife and his wife not only purchased old electrical appliances and furniture from residents, but also separated them from domestic waste. Pick up some of the higher value items and sell them to the purchasing station. The acquisition station will be sold to downstream recycling companies or recycling workshops based on the types and value of waste products.
Lao Zhang revealed that usually a 70% new, medium-sized flat-screen TV can be received for about 100 yuan, and the price of a CRT-type color TV is even lower; a drum washing machine in good condition is about 70-100 yuan. The pulsator washing machine is 50 yuan or less; the double-layer refrigerator purchase price ranges from 50-150 yuan according to volume and power. Old appliances such as old fans and old ovens, even if the functions and appearance are relatively intact, usually do not exceed 10 One yuan can be charged. "Most of the recycled home appliances can still be used, mainly because they have outdated functions or residents want to buy a better and newer wave."
Individual recyclers like Lao Zhang who walk through the streets are an important supplier of home appliance recycling companies.
The recycling enterprise of Shandong Zhonglu Resources Recycling Co., Ltd. ranks among the best in the country in terms of annual household appliance dismantling. The company's general manager Xu Laiyong introduced that among the waste household appliances they obtained, only about 10% of the household appliances were recycled through the trade-in replacement by sales companies. It accounts for about 5%, and most of the remaining home appliances are recycled through social channels.
Industry data shows that despite the diversification of sales companies' trade-in, professional recycler recycling, and local government recycling channels in recent years, it is still difficult to shake the status of individual recycling channels.
Individual recycling has its advantages of being flexible and close to the market, but it also has some drawbacks.
"My refrigerator has been bought for 8 years, and I have always wanted to change the refrigerator with double doors and low energy consumption. The old appliances are in good condition, but the people who collect the waste products are too low to offer them," said He Bai, a Beijing citizen. The lack of a reasonable valuation system and the fact that the recyclers have kept the prices down has affected the enthusiasm of residents to eliminate old appliances and replace new ones to a certain extent.
A large number of individual recyclers and small workshops engaged in informal dismantling occupy both ends of the industrial chain, and also cause new pollution and waste. Some individual recycling personnel, after simple dismantling, throw away the rest at random, which brings pollution to the environment and makes some valuable parts and materials unusable. There are also some small workshops that do simple processing and package old home appliances into new home appliances for secondary sale, which brings hidden safety risks.
China is the largest country in home appliance manufacturing and the largest consumer of home appliances. According to the "China Waste Electrical and Electronic Products Recycling and Comprehensive Utilization Industry White Paper 2019" released by the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, China's major household electrical appliances have reached 540 million color televisions, 440 million refrigerators, and 4.2 washing machines in 2019 100 million units, 460 million room air conditioners, 370 million water heaters, and 240 million range hoods. According to data from the National Development and Reform Commission, China is at the peak of household appliance scrapping, eliminating 100 million to 120 million units of waste household electricity annually, and growing at an average annual growth rate of 20%. It is expected that the number of scrapped household appliances will reach 137 million this year.
Such a large amount of scrap is urgently needed to be promoted in terms of recycling, dismantling and reuse.
Opening the pot is inseparable from "rice" and "chai"
The whole process of home appliance recycling and updating consumption is like buying rice for cooking. If it is said that the recycling of old home appliances is "rice cleaning," then the consumption of new home appliances is "cooking." To ensure that there is rice in the pot, we must first increase consumers' enthusiasm for eliminating old appliances.
"New three years, three years old, three years of repairs and repairs." Nanjing citizen grandmother Huang introduced that her refrigerator has been in service for more than 20 years, and its production enterprises no longer exist. "The children bought it when they were married, and they are very skinny until now. I am reluctant to throw it away."
Some consumers are often reluctant to use new appliances when they are using them for a few years. The phenomenon of overdue service of household appliances is very prominent. The actual scrapped amount of household appliances is much lower than the theoretical scrapped amount each year.
The safe service life of refrigerators and air conditioners is 10 years, and that of water heaters, washing machines and range hoods is 8 years... At the beginning of this year, the China Household Electrical Appliances Association issued a series of standards for the "Safe Life Time of Household Appliances" to make the service life of home appliances "standard-compliant" . The announcement of this standard coincides with the introduction of the "Plan". Industry insiders predict that a wave of centralized replacement of old home appliances is coming, and the stock market of home appliances will enable enterprises to usher in demand growth.
If you have rice, you must clean it. The development of multiple recycling channels and sinking of the “tentacles” of recycling enterprises can raise the purchase price of old home appliances, and increase the profit margin of recycling enterprises while attracting consumers.
"I am planning to start a new TV recently. I have reserved a free door-to-door recycling service on the Gome Butler's website. I bought a 4-year old TV for more than 200 yuan, which is twice the asking price of an individual recycler. The price is settled on the spot. Convenient and cost-effective!" said Yuan Pei, a Shanghai citizen.
According to the person in charge of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, among the various old home appliance recycling channels, in addition to the EPR (producer extended responsibility system) recycling channels of production companies like Gome Butler, there are also trade-in channels for sales companies, such as Haier water heater trade-in services. ; The recycling companies directly recycle Shanghai Alibaba Environmental Protection Network, Beijing banana peels, etc.; professional recyclers recycle Shenzhen Aibo Green, Beijing leisure goods and so on.
In order to promote multi-subject participation, the "Proposal" encourages production enterprises to implement the EPR model through self-built recycling networks, entrusted recycling, and joint recycling; encourages recycling companies to establish diversified recycling channels and develop waste through full category recycling and appointment recycling Household appliances are recycled and handled by compliant companies; at the same time, large-scale recycling companies are encouraged to absorb individual recyclers and establish long-term and stable cooperative relations.
When the rice is out of the pot, there is also firewood. For recycling companies, this “chai” is a subsidy allocated from the disposal fund for waste electrical and electronic products. This government fund was established in 2012, with electrical and electronic product manufacturers and importers as the obligor, and used to subsidize electrical appliance recycling and dismantling enterprises. However, in the past actual operation, problems such as unbalanced income and expenditure, unbalanced subsidies, and long subsidy payment cycle have affected its sustainable operation. The slow availability of subsidies has led to difficulties in starting and operating difficult for regular household appliance recycling enterprises. According to statistics, in stark contrast to the theoretical processing capacity of 180 million units of waste household appliances per year, the actual processing capacity of recycling companies in 2019 is only about 80 million units.
In response to this, the "Proposal" proposes to improve the fund subsidy policy, appropriately adjust the fund subsidy standards and collection standards, so that the "revenue is fixed, self-balancing" mechanism can be implemented; at the same time, promote the implementation of dynamic adjustment of the list of fund subsidies, A policy guide to encourage advanced and eliminate backwards is truly formed.
Smooth circulation of production, consumption and recycling
The implementation of the new plan has penetrated the industrial chain of waste household appliance recycling, which is conducive to smoothing and accelerating the large cycle between household appliance producers, consumers and recyclers.
——Let producers participate deeply in appliance recycling.
Experts introduced that production enterprises are encouraged to fully participate, mainly relying on the EPR recycling model to dispose of used home appliances, which is also a common practice in the recycling of used home appliances in developed countries. "Manufacturers are more familiar with the materials and structure of their products, and encourage them to participate in the recycling and dismantling of used electrical appliances, which is conducive to promoting the resource recycling of used household electrical appliances, thus making the resource and environmental benefits of household electrical appliances throughout the life cycle This is even more significant," said Xu Dongsheng, vice chairman of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association.
The Plan also encourages production enterprises to come up with high-quality new products and attract consumers to buy them. Li Jinhui, a professor at the School of Environment at Tsinghua University, pointed out that this will promote home appliance manufacturers to carry out technological innovation, improve the green and intelligent level of home appliance products, and explore new consumption models of home appliance rental business.
——Let the consumer's home appliances be exchanged diligently and economically.
How to increase consumers' enthusiasm for “swapping the old for new”? The "Proposal" proposes "appropriate subsidies for consumers' purchase of energy-efficient home appliances", encourages home appliance production and sales enterprises, e-commerce platforms, etc. to organize "anniversary" and "shopping festivals" and other activities, by issuing home appliance coupons and other methods to guide Residents accelerate the replacement of household appliances, and promote the replacement of household appliances in urban residents. Yu Keli, Secretary General of China National Materials Recycling Association, pointed out that the new approach generally gets rid of the trade-in model that relies solely on government subsidies, and explores innovative business models to promote home appliance updates and let the market play a major role.
——Let the recyclers standardize their operations and make them profitable.
The "Plan" takes the construction of a recycling system as the focus of work. It widely uses the next generation of information technologies such as the Internet, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence to promote the construction of recycling channels for used household appliances such as community recycling systems, reverse logistics systems, multi-party joint recycling systems, and renewable resource recycling systems. , Build an intelligent, efficient, traceable, online and offline recycling system. "It can be expected that in the future, our country's recycling model of waste household appliances will be rich and diverse, and a number of new recycling models that can be copied and promoted will emerge." Li Jinhui said.
Wang Wenzheng