Plastic recycling is supported as a waste policy

01 point of view

Written by: Review Editor Room

2020-06-08 18:00

Environmental protection has been a concern in recent years. Many families have learned to sort waste first, and the three-color recycling bins in housing estates have naturally become a good helper for households to sort and recycle. Helpless guests do their best to "tear the paper, remove the cover, and rinse it out". It is often difficult to trace the final destination of the plastic bottle. On Monday (8th), "Hong Kong 01" reported that the reporter put GPS trackers in plastic bottles and placed them in the recycling bins of 14 housing estates, and found that nearly 64% of the trackers were sent to landfills. The reporter then interviewed two front-line cleaners of the tested housing estates. Both stated that no one had recycled plastic, and the plastic was discarded as garbage.

Aunt Xia, a cleaner of Tianrui Village (pseudonym), said that the recovered plastic bottles will be sold by a recycler in Tianrui Village, but Aunt Xia regrets that the recycler has no longer recycled plastic bottles and chose to discard them directly. (Photo by Liang Zurao)

Oil prices fall, exports are difficult, and prices are low

The findings of the survey indicate that many of the recyclable plastics in Hong Kong have already gone the same way as ordinary garbage. The management companies and contractors involved in the housing estates certainly have their blame. However, behind the default, a large amount of plastic waste was dumped into landfills, which also revealed the operational difficulties of the plastic recycling industry in Hong Kong.

The slump in plastic prices is not a one-day cold, and the recyclers' lack of motivation for recycling plastics is lacking. Since January 2018, the Mainland tightened the standards for recycled materials. After the plastic futures price reached RMB 10,180 a ton for the month, the price of plastics subsequently deteriorated. Until the outbreak of the epidemic, the factories in the mainland were shut down, the demand for plastics fell sharply, and the price of crude oil fell sharply earlier, and the cost of plastics manufacturing fell, which led to a low plastic price of 5,350 yuan a ton in March 2020. It is not until the recent international oil prices have stabilized and the factories in the mainland have resumed work that the June plastic prices will return to the level of 6,515 yuan.

In the past year, a reporter from "Hong Kong 01" placed GPS trackers in the plastic container recycling bins of 14 housing estates. It was found that at least nine plastic bottle trackers were sent to landfills or waste transfer stations. (01 drawing)

The price of plastics has fallen by a third from the high level, making it more difficult for recyclers to profit from it. In an interview with the media, Fang Wenjin, general manager of Juncheng Environmental Protection Co., Ltd., pointed out that the prices of new materials and recycled products are similar, which is not conducive to the sales of recycled materials. In addition, the outbreaks in China, Europe and the United States have caused many recyclers to lose many orders. At present, the company has accumulated nearly 3,000 tons of recycled plastic raw materials, which is equivalent to two months of production of "goods" can only be stored, and the company has no choice but to cut production by half.

Plastic prices are sluggish, and transportation costs have become an important consideration for recyclers. The housing estates in Hong Kong are scattered and the amount of recycling is small. The plastic recycling business is located in the New Territories, which makes the recyclable plastics in housing estates less attractive. Instead, property management companies or cleaners should pay to "invite" the recycling business to recycle. As for how the garbage will end up after recycling, Liu Yaocheng, chairman of the Hong Kong Environmental Recycling Industry Sustainable Development Association, has bluntly suspected that the industry is "fake recycling". Some plastic recyclers just throw the recycled products elsewhere instead of sending them for recycling.

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Short-term appropriation emergency long-term recovery

To help the recycling industry, the Environmental Bureau should take both short-term emergency and long-term support. The epidemic will have a short-term impact on the demand for plastics in the market. The bureau can first maintain the operation of the plastic recycling plant to provide additional assistance to the industry, such as subsidizing the contractor according to the recycling volume and encouraging enterprises to continue to recycle plastics. As for the recycled plastics that have not been sold, the Environment Bureau can also help the industry to find a place to temporarily store clean plastics, so that the recycling plant can maintain the capacity to recycle waste rubber before the global plastics demand returns after the epidemic.

Not only are short-term operations facing difficulties, the transportation costs of plastic recycling are high, but the Council must also support the industry in the long run. According to the Environmental Protection Department's "Hong Kong Solid Waste Monitoring Report", the plastic recovery rate has fallen year-on-year since 2016, and the recovery rate is only 7% in 2018. Liu Miaocheng, the manager of Senfeng Environmental Protection Transportation Company, which has been engaged in recycling for many years, pointed out that in order to improve the transportation efficiency of plastic waste, garbage trucks need to crush the recycled materials, but this process mixes different types of plastic, and the recycler needs to be sorted by sorting machine in disguise. With all kinds of plastics, the processing cost is greatly increased. The Government should technically support the industry in handling plastic waste, or financially support contractors to purchase machinery to facilitate the transportation of plastic waste by the industry.

The value of plastic is very low, but the volume is much larger than that of waste paper, and it is not like aluminum cans can be squashed on the spot. Plastic wastes such as plastic bottles have always been "favored" by the industry, and the problem has yet to be resolved by the government.

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