How to make high-value use of low-value recyclables
According to the Research Report on Recycling Status of Low-value Recyclable Materials in China issued by China, in 2021, except for large-sized garbage, the output of various low-value recyclable materials in China was about 95.77 million tons, and the recycling volume was about 25.47 million tons, with a total recovery rate of about 26.6%. About 70 million tons were mixed with domestic garbage for incineration or landfill, which was far lower than the average recovery rate of more than 75% of the main renewable resources in China.
Low-value recyclables is a concept relative to high-value wastes such as scrapped cars and discarded household appliances, which mainly refers to all kinds of wastes that have certain recycling value and can be recycled by certain technical and economic means and obtain certain economic benefits.
According to the report, in 2021, China Communists discarded 50.21 million tons of low-value plastic packaging, 22.75 million tons of waste glass, 21.24 million tons of waste textiles, 1.32 million tons of agricultural plastic film, 640,000 tons of paper-based composite packaging for beverages, 125,600 tons of fertilizer packaging and 117,000 tons of pesticide packaging. In addition to the recovery rate of waste agricultural plastic film reaching 60.6%, the recovery rates of pesticide packaging waste, beverage paper-based composite packaging, daily waste glass, waste textiles and low-value plastic packaging are 58.6%, 33.1%, 27.1%, 21% and 19.5% in turn, and the overall recovery rate is low.
With the rising cost of human resources and transportation, the recycling of some recyclables becomes unprofitable and becomes recyclables with low or even no economic value.
According to the report, at present, only 18 cities in China have issued the Catalogue of Low-value Recyclable Materials or special management measures, and appropriately subsidized the recycling of low-value recyclable materials. Low-value recyclables are basically in the "three-no-cares" zone where local governments do not attach importance to it, enterprises are not enthusiastic about recycling, and people are indifferent to classification. The existing recycling enterprises are small in scale and backward in technology, and they are basically in an embarrassing situation of struggling to live, resulting in a generally low recycling rate of low-value recyclables.
According to the report, the direction of China's low-value recyclable materials is to strengthen the top-level design and system supply by the state, strengthen the system construction and policy guarantee by local governments, strengthen the innovation of technological models by enterprises, and widely participate by the broad masses of the people, so as to form a governance pattern in which relevant subjects are jointly governed and shared.
The report suggests that different recycling modes should be adopted for different categories of low-value recyclable materials according to their physical properties and recycling channels: for waste glass and waste textiles, franchise mode should be adopted to build an independent collection, transportation and disposal system; For waste chemical fertilizer and pesticide packaging and plastic film, it is appropriate to introduce the extended producer responsibility system, establish regional recycling alliances, and adopt the deposit recycling model for centralized collection and disposal.
Promoting the construction and improvement of the recycling system of low-value recyclables is an important part of building a recycling system of waste, and it is also an important way to effectively deal with plastic pollution, scientifically utilize various resources and improve the output rate of resources. If the recovery rate of low-value recyclable materials in China is raised to 50% by 2030, 47.9 million tons of low-value recyclable materials can be recycled every year, more than 45 million tons of renewable resources such as recycled plastics and recycled paper will be added to the society, and carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by about 120 million tons, making a certain contribution to sustainable development.