How is the proliferation of discarded foam bins handled?
Set up a special group for emergency disposal of foam waste, increase disposal and recycling, and solve the problem of white foam
Reporter Qi Yingpu
During the epidemic, a large number of plastic foam waste boxes were generated from the distribution of guaranteed supplies and community group purchases in Shanghai.
Although these white foams are recyclables, they are bulky and light in weight, which makes the loading efficiency of garbage trucks very low, and it is easy to fail to keep up with the production speed.
Because of the difficulty of stacking, transportation and disposal, white foam has become a new problem in urban sanitation.
In addition to the collection and transportation of medical waste and the special collection and transportation of domestic waste in sealed and controlled communities, Shanghai has temporarily set up a special group for emergency disposal of foam waste to increase the disposal and recycling of waste foam boxes.
Foam plastic boxes are widely used in cold chain transportation. During the epidemic, the production of foam plastic waste increased sharply, and the logistics chain of renewable resources recovery between Shanghai and other provinces was suspended, which greatly affected the recycling of foam waste.
As a guarantee enterprise for urban environmental operation, Shanghai Chengtou Environment Group has undertaken the task of emergency disposal of foam waste, and its subsidiary resource utilization branch has resumed work and production. Through the "two networks integration" resource recovery system, it can avoid the accumulation of foam plastics in residential areas and streets. The box becomes a source of white pollution.
"Two networks" refers to the two networks of urban sanitation system and renewable resource system.
Chengtou Environmental Resource Utilization Branch has built and operated 3 renewable resource distribution centers, 19 transfer stations, 8 demonstration points, and 2,190 recycling points in Pudong, Huangpu, Xuhui, Jiading, and Qingpu in Shanghai, forming a transit system Transportation is the node, the distribution center is the hub, the comprehensive utilization is the purpose, and the whole industry system integrates recycling, sorting and disposal.
Relying on this system, the Resource Utilization Branch established 4 special working groups for emergency disposal of foam waste, and determined that the collection, transportation and disposal of foam waste adopts the form of "manual recycling + special vehicle transfer + special equipment compression".
Since late April, emergency disposal projects for white foam waste in Huangpu, Xuhui, Qingpu, Pudong Lingang and other places have been launched successively.
The single-vehicle loading efficiency of foam plastic boxes is low, and a vehicle with a load of 20 tons can only stack 200 kg of foam plastic boxes.
At the same time, due to site constraints, the foam box occupies a large area and is difficult to store.
The emergency response team used a foam cold press, which can crush and compress the foam through crushers, compressors, hydraulic systems, etc.
The volume of the compressed foam block can be reduced to one-thirtieth to one-fifth, making it easier to pack, store and transport.
After the epidemic is suspended, these compressed and stored foam boxes will be sent to downstream enterprises for further recycling.
In the process of collection and transportation, the special working group for foam waste disposal collects and analyzes the backlog in each community every day, allocates resources reasonably, and plans the best disposal route.
According to the actual situation of the distribution of materials in the community on that day, determine the operation time with the neighborhood committee and the property management, and plan the on-site disinfection, operation shifts, and vehicle scheduling in advance.
As of May 8, 8 special collection and transportation vehicles have been deployed, equipped with 3 foam cold-pressing equipment, 166 operators have been put into operation, 300 vehicles have been collected and transported, and 19.98 tons of recyclables have been recycled and disposed of, including 11.6 tons of white foam, 4.98 tons of waste cardboard and 3.4 tons of waste glass.
The disposal capacity has also rapidly increased from an average of 0.43 tons per day to an average of 3.61 tons per day.
In addition, full-coverage and whole-process preventive disinfection runs through every link of the collection, transportation and disposal of white foam waste.