Pay attention to the impact of policies on the recycled plastics industry

The recycled plastics industry is a policy-oriented industry. The impact of the policy on the industry is undoubted. The scope of impact is multi-angled, whether it is the supply or demand of pellets, or the supply of waste plastics or wool. It is the impact on the enterprise's own standardized management. The following is a detailed analysis.

First, environmental protection inspection and other normalization policies. In recent years, there have been more and more environmental inspections at various levels. From the full coverage of environmental protection inspections in 2017, to the "look back" of environmental protection in October 2018, the blue sky defense battle that continued in 2017 to the routine action plan for comprehensive treatment of atmospheric pollution in autumn and winter in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in the fourth quarter of each year The promulgation and implementation of various policies, bills and regulations all show that the government attaches great importance to environmental quality.

From previous inspections, the production of recycled plastics and the production of many plastic products factories will be affected to a certain extent. Many small and medium-sized enterprises have been passively shut down for a period of time, which will affect the supply and demand of local goods for a period of time. For example, around mid-July 2019, due to air quality problems, Linyi City carried out strong environmental inspections, and many local production industries, including recycled plastics, were restricted.

Second, the Basel Convention. The core principles of the Basel Convention are waste reduction, waste near the place of production and environmentally sound disposal, and control of waste transboundary movement. Before agreeing to export plastic waste, all parties should notify the destination country in advance and obtain consent to restrict the current rampant plastic waste export behavior. The new “plastic limit” measure was proposed by Norway and received overwhelming support from the participants. Only the United States and Argentina , Brazil and the chemical and plastics industry representatives expressed their opposition. The proposal adopted at this meeting will take effect in January 2021.

After the revision of the Basel Convention, it means that the secret export of plastic waste from developed countries to developing countries will become history. Overall, this incident has the greatest impact on the United States, because the new measures will prohibit the export of countries that have not yet ratified the convention. List of garbage. Although the United States signed the Basel Convention in 1990, this convention has not yet been approved by the United States Congress to enter into force, so the United States is still an "outsider" of this important environmental protection convention.

In addition, countries such as China, India, Thailand and Vietnam have successively said "no" to "foreign garbage" such as waste plastics. According to foreign media reports, after China banned the entry of "foreign garbage" in 2017, more plastic waste was transferred to Southeast Asia, especially Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries.

This modification is mainly to effectively intercept waste plastics entering the country and exclude wastes from the source at the source. It is similar to the domestic policy for restricting foreign garbage in 2017, and the impact on recycled plastics is mainly reflected in On the supply side, the current domestic source of recycled plastic wool mainly depends on the country, rather than the previous import and domestic "two legs" walking.

Third, garbage classification. Garbage sorting is to separate recyclables from the front end and then concentrate them on the back end for processing. The work objectives are: (1) By the end of 2020, the 46 key cities that will be tested first will basically build a waste sorting system; other places Grade cities have achieved full coverage of domestic garbage classification in public institutions, and at least one street has basically built a demonstration zone for domestic garbage classification. (2) By 2022, there will be at least one district in the cities at all levels to achieve full coverage of domestic waste classification, and at least one street in other districts will basically complete a domestic garbage classification demonstration area. By 2025, cities at prefecture level and above will basically build a garbage classification and treatment system. The general idea is three sentences-source reduction, full classification, end-use resource utilization and harmless disposal capabilities have been greatly improved.

The implementation of garbage classification is related to the living environment of the broad masses of the people and to saving resources. It is also an important manifestation of the level of social civilization. It seems to be a trivial "little thing", but the world's big things must be done in detail. Although the garbage is "small", it is related to people's livelihood and civilization. There are some difficulties in the promotion and implementation of garbage classification. The more difficult thing is the sustainability. It is necessary to improve the legislation and top-level design of garbage classification and formulate a strict garbage disposal system. China should formulate relevant laws and regulations on garbage disposal from top-level design to detailed implementation to provide legal basis and system guarantee for garbage classification. In terms of implementation, it is necessary to increase propaganda, combine long-term guidance, reward and punishment, and also use advanced technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence to help sort waste.

Garbage classification is to separate the recyclables at the front end and then concentrate them to the back end for processing. However, Zhuo Chuang Information surveyed many people in the recycled plastics industry, including the association, that garbage classification does not increase the amount of waste plastic recycling, or it is less likely. The main reason is that according to the current recycling method, waste plastics with utilization value have been collected and processed by residents or households in waste recycling stations-waste plastic recyclers-recycled plastic manufacturers; and after the garbage is sorted, it is expected that most recyclables will still pass Entering the above channels may increase some recovery volume, but the possibility of large-scale increase is relatively small.