Plastic recycling will become the mainstream of green development of plastics

        At present, the world has formed a consensus on the green development of plastics. Nearly 90 countries and regions have issued relevant policies or regulations to control or prohibit disposable non-degradable plastic products, setting off a new wave of green development of plastics around the world. In my country, green, low-carbon and circular economy have also become the main line of industrial policy during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.

        Plastic recycling methods

        Plastic recycling mainly includes two ways of utilization: physical recycling and chemical recycling. Physical recycling is the current mainstream plastic recycling method, but since each recycling will reduce the quality of recycled plastics, mechanical and physical recycling has certain limitations. For plastic products of too low quality or difficult to regenerate, chemical recycling methods can generally be used, that is, waste plastics are refined as "crude oil" to achieve the reuse of waste plastic materials, while avoiding the downgrading of conventional physical recycling products.

        Easy-to-recycle design means that plastic-related products take their recycling factors into consideration during the production design process, thereby greatly improving the plastic recycling rate. For example, packaging bags that were previously produced using PE, PVC, and PP can be produced using different grades of metallocene polyethylene (mPE), which is conducive to recycling.

        Plastic recycling has a huge impact on carbon neutrality

        According to estimates, under the full life cycle, on average, every ton of plastic recycled physically will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 4.16 tons compared to non-recycling plastics, and on average, every ton of plastic recycled chemically will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1.87 tons compared to non-recycling plastics. By 2030, my country's physical recycling of plastics will reduce carbon emissions by 120 million tons, and physical recycling + chemical recycling (including sediment waste plastic treatment) will reduce carbon emissions by 180 million tons.

        Strengthening plastic recycling is the international mainstream trend

        At present, the international response to the problem of waste plastics mainly adopts methods such as restricting or prohibiting the use of difficult-to-recycle plastic products, encouraging plastic recycling and treatment, and using degradable plastics as substitutes. Among them, strengthening plastic recycling is the international mainstream trend, and increasing the proportion of plastic recycling is the first choice for developed countries.

        The European Union has imposed a "plastic packaging tax" on its member states for non-recyclable plastics since January 1, 2021, and banned 10 disposable plastic products such as expanded polystyrene from entering the European market. The packaging tax forces plastic product companies to use recycled plastics. By 2025, the European Union will use more recyclable packaging materials. On the technical level, the current research on the green development of plastics in developed countries is mainly focused on the easy-to-recycle design of plastic products and the development of chemical recycling technology. Although biodegradable technology was first initiated by European and American countries, the enthusiasm for its technology promotion is not high at present.

        my country's green plastic recycling and regeneration industry is accelerating

        In 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment issued the "Opinions on Further Strengthening Plastic Pollution Control", covering the management and disposal requirements of plastic products at all stages of their life cycle, and put forward corresponding requirements and development suggestions for various issues in all links of waste plastic recycling and regeneration.

        In 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Circular Economy", which will increase the recycling of materials including plastics and build a circular society. On September 15, 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for Plastic Pollution Control Action Plan", proposing that by 2025, the full-chain governance system of plastic pollution will be further improved, the responsibilities of local governments, departments and enterprises will be strengthened, and the source reduction of plastic production and use will be actively promoted. Plastic alternative products will be promoted scientifically and steadily, and the standardized recycling of plastic waste will be accelerated. Efforts will be made to improve the level of safe disposal of plastic waste at the end, carry out special cleaning and rectification of plastic waste, and significantly reduce the amount of plastic waste landfill and environmental leakage, so that white pollution will be effectively curbed.

        By 2030, my country's plastic recycling rate will reach 45%~50%. At present, my country consumes more than 100 million tons of plastic raw materials annually, and it is expected to reach more than 150 million tons in 2030. According to rough estimates, my country's plastic packaging exports to the EU will reach 2.6 million tons in 2030, and a packaging tax of 2.07 billion euros will be required.

        Main driving force for the development of my country's green plastic recycling industry

        First, insufficient environmental carrying capacity and the vision of building a resource-saving society require the whole society to increase the plastic recycling rate;

        Second, the carbon trading price continues to increase, and every ton of plastic recycled will reduce 3.88 tons of carbon in the entire life cycle of the plastic, greatly increase the profit of plastic recycling, and promote a significant increase in the recycling rate;

        Third, all major plastic product companies have announced the use of recycled plastics or the addition of recycled plastics. The demand for recycled materials will increase significantly in the future, and there may be a situation where the price of recycled materials is inverted;

        Fourth, carbon tariffs and packaging taxes in Europe and the United States will also force my country to significantly increase the plastic recycling rate.

        Problems facing my country's plastic recycling industry at present

        First, the scattered sources of waste plastics, the huge differences in the shapes of discarded plastic products, and the variety of materials have led to the difficulty and high cost of recycling waste plastics in my country.

        Second, the threshold of the waste plastic recycling industry is low, and most of them are workshop-style enterprises. The sorting method is mainly manual sorting, lacking automated fine sorting technology and industrial equipment. As of 2020, there are 26,000 plastic recycling companies in China, which are small in scale, widely distributed, and generally weak in profitability. The characteristics of the industry structure have led to difficulties in supervision of my country's plastic recycling industry and huge investment in regulatory resources.

        Third, the fragmentation of the industry has also led to intensified vicious competition. Enterprises pay more attention to product price advantages and reducing production costs, and neglect technological upgrades. The overall development of the industry is slow. The main way to use waste plastics is to make recycled plastics. After manual screening and classification, and then through crushing, melt pelletizing, modification and other processes, waste plastics are made into recycled plastic particles that can be used. Due to the complex sources of recycled plastics and the large number of impurities, the product quality stability is extremely poor. It is urgent to strengthen technical research and improve the stability of recycled plastics. The chemical recycling method cannot be commercialized at present due to factors such as high cost of equipment and catalysts. Continuing to study low-cost processes is the key research and development direction.

        There are many constraints on the development of degradable plastics

        Degradable plastics, also known as environmentally degradable plastics, refer to a type of plastic that can eventually be completely degraded into carbon dioxide, methane, water and mineralized inorganic salts of the elements it contains, as well as new biomass under various conditions in nature. Due to the limitations of degradation conditions, application fields and research and development, the degradable plastics mentioned in the industry currently mainly refer to biodegradable plastics. The current mainstream degradable plastics are PBAT, PLA, etc. Degradable plastics generally need 90 to 180 days to be completely degraded under industrial composting conditions, and due to the special nature of the material, they generally need to be separately classified and recycled. The current research focus is on controllable degradable plastics, that is, plastics that degrade under specified time or conditions.

        First, the degradation of degradable plastics requires recycling and composting. However, my country's degradable plastic recycling system has not been fully established, and degradable plastics are mixed with traditional plastics for recycling. In addition, there are only about 100 composting plants in my country, and they mainly compost food waste, and there are no composting plants specifically for degradable plastics. If degradable plastics are not composted, it will take several years to degrade.

        Second, the intermediate products of degradable plastic degradation are small molecular compounds, which may cause environmental pollution, and further research is needed in this regard.

        Third, the production cost of biodegradable plastics is 2 to 3 times that of traditional plastics.

        Fourth, the performance of biodegradable plastics is not as good as traditional plastics.

        Fifth, the carbon emission reduction effect of biodegradable plastics is not as good as that of traditional plastic recycling.

        Suggestions on the green development of my country's plastic recycling industry

        1. Increase policy support for carbon tax subsidies, tax incentives, and waste plastic resource tilt for chemical recycling of waste plastics. First, the carbon emissions of the chemical recycling process of waste plastics are about 2 tons/ton less than the carbon emissions of the entire life cycle of virgin plastics (from crude oil exploration to combustion). From the perspective of the whole society, the chemical recycling of waste plastics is a carbon reduction process, so the carbon reduction quota should be given to waste plastic chemical recycling companies. Secondly, the chemical recycling process of waste plastics is a full industrial process from waste plastic collection, sorting and cleaning, waste plastic pyrolysis, to petrochemical processing for recycled plastics. The professional differences of each step are huge, and most of them are handled by different companies. Each step should enjoy tax incentives, not just waste plastic collection companies that are exempted from value-added tax. Thirdly, the state should vigorously encourage the development of chemical recycling enterprises, cultivate leading enterprises, and tilt the waste plastic resources of sanitation groups and municipal groups towards them.

        2. Advocate product enterprises to strengthen the easy-to-recycle design of plastic products. At present, most plastic products are not conducive to physical recycling, so the easy-to-recycle design in the production stage is a very necessary choice, such as using different brands of metallocene plastics to replace different types of plastics, using water-based inks, laser engraving, paper-plastic ultrasonic combination, FFS heavy film to replace woven bags, etc., to increase the probability of recycling waste plastics at the source.

        3. Advocate the whole society to strengthen garbage classification. Plastic recycling and regeneration benefits the country and the people, and it is necessary to strengthen garbage classification education for the whole society. The better consumers do in garbage classification, the lower the cost of the whole society in the later stage.