At the 2023 Green Recycled Plastics Supply Chain Forum held in Suzhou on July 19-20, the "China Plastic Flexible Packaging Recycling Baseline Report" (hereinafter referred to as the report) was officially released. The report shows that in 2022, China's consumption of flexible packaging plastics is about 32.8 million tons, of which the use of domestic plastic flexible packaging is about 16 million tons, the recycling amount is about 1.3 million tons, and the recovery rate is 8.7%.
What is plastic flexible packaging?
Plastic flexible packaging refers to a variety of bags, sets, envelopes and other film packaging made of plastic as the main raw materials, including the circulation and use of living source flexible packaging and industrial source flexible packaging generated in the production and processing process. Plastic flexible packaging with its rich functions, diverse forms of expression and superior performance and low cost, has become one of the main packaging forms of commodities.
In order to understand the relevant situation of plastic flexible packaging waste, build a plastic flexible packaging recycling chain, and promote the sustainable operation of the recycling and recycling industrial system, led by the Joint Working Group of Green recycled Plastics Supply Chain and the Recycled Plastics Branch of the China Materials Recycling Association, Together with P&G China, Mars China, Dow Company and PepsiCo, we jointly launched the Flexible Plastic Regeneration-Plastic flexible Packaging Recycling project, conducted research on plastic flexible packaging recycling and recycling, and released the report.
"This report focuses on the recycling, recycling and utilization of non-degradable plastic domestic soft packaging, from the aspects of raw materials, consumption, waste, recycling, recycling processing, application, value chain, etc., and makes relevant recommendations based on the key results of the research." Soft plastic new project team representative Zhou Wandi said.
What is the source of living plastic flexible packaging?
The report shows that in 2022, China's packaging industry consumes about 49.2 million tons of plastic, of which flexible packaging plastic consumption accounts for about 67%. In the use of 16 million tons of living source plastic flexible packaging, the food field accounted for 43%, followed by disposable shopping bags vest bags garbage bags flexible packaging accounted for 11%, express packaging accounted for 9%, clothing packaging accounted for 8%, cosmetics and daily use accounted for 6%, other fields accounted for 24%.
"The recycling rate of soft plastic packaging is only 8.7%, far lower than the recycling rate of 30% of waste plastic in China, and a large number of waste flexible packaging is landfilled or incinerated, resulting in a huge waste of resources and environmental hazards." Mr Zhou said.
Why is the recovery rate of plastic flexible packaging low?
The report also analyzes the factors affecting the recycling of plastic flexible packaging, which are mainly reflected in five aspects: low awareness of recyclability, low value, high recycling cost, difficult regeneration and application of high value, insufficient upstream and downstream demand connection, and insufficient ecological design of plastic flexible packaging.
In the survey, the project team found that only 18% of residents believe that it can be recycled, and more than 93% of residents can not distinguish between single material, composite material and degradable material flexible packaging, which brings challenges to front-end classification collection.
Due to the volume of waste plastic flexible packaging, light weight and other factors, recycling benefits are minimal, and residents are not willing to accumulate such recyclables. In addition, due to its characteristics, recyclers have high logistics costs, and it is difficult to achieve automated sorting.
At the same time, due to the variety of soft plastic colors and accompanied by printing, attached impurities and other pollutants, it is also difficult to apply some recycled particles in the field of relatively high value." The design of plastic flexible packaging also directly determines whether it is easy to recycle, easy to recycle, single transparent, no printing, not polluted, and easy to sort plastic flexible packaging is most easily accepted by the recycling system, with a wider range of applications." Mr Zhou said.
How to improve the utilization rate of soft plastic recycling?
The report puts forward suggestions on improving the utilization rate of soft plastic recycling from the aspects of source design, system establishment and technological breakthrough.
The report suggests that the green ecological design standards for plastic flexible packaging should be formulated and implemented to improve the easy recycling and reproducibility of plastic flexible packaging. To carry out the construction of waste plastic flexible packaging recycling system and explore sustainable commercial operation mode; The establishment of chemical recovery pilot, which can be replicated after the experiment, reduce unnecessary investment and detours in the early stage; Through policy stimulation, expand the application demand of recycled plastics, and form a closed loop of plastic flexible packaging.
The soft Plastic New project aims to set up a design, production, consumption, recycling, regeneration and high-value application system for flexible plastic packaging for living sources by gathering the strength of all links of the industrial chain and guided by the design standards for easy recycling and recycling of plastic products, to help build a "waste free city" and practice a green and low-carbon circular economy. Even the global plastic circular economy development has explored a new model.
