By Mr.D 2019-11-27 13:59:06
"Recycling old refrigerators, old color TVs, old washing machines ..."
This slogan with a strong accent freezes our generation's first impression of the waste industry. Then, people's memory of the waste industry may be cardboard and plastic bottles stacked in mountains in the recycle bin.
Recycling, an industry that is active in small towns, seems to have been on the verge of modern life. But in fact, American journalist Adam Minter mentioned in the book "Waste Planet" that the annual turnover of the global recycling industry has reached 500 billion U.S. dollars, which is about equal to Norway's GDP and is second only to global employees. Agriculture industry.
Waste recycling is not as simple as we think.
"All waste products in the world are Lilai"
"The world is full of benefits, the world is good, the world is good, all are good." Waste recycling and recycling is a long chain. The original motive for people to do this is not environmental protection, but profit, even the birth of waste. Behind it is the shadow of capital. The globalization of the waste recycling industry is already an eternal feature of the world economy. It is no different from the globalization of the smartphone manufacturing industry, and its durability is not shrinking.
1. Manufacturers profit, the birth of "planned waste"
Generally speaking, the birth of waste products is that the use value and commercial value of a product are close to zero, which is the natural end of the product's life. But in reality, there is also a phenomenon of deliberately shortening the life of products. Especially in the manufacture of electronic waste, many hardware manufacturers may bear most of the responsibilities.
On the one hand, device makers have adopted a "planned retirement" strategy to shorten the life of electronic devices in order to force users to upgrade to new devices. Apple has admitted that the new version of the iOS system will automatically limit device performance, and users have to replace the new machine for a better experience.
On the other hand, shared bicycles flooded into disasters, and idle or intentionally damaged bicycles had to flow into the industrial chain as a "new capital" in the waste recycling industry. This year, a number of waste blocks decomposed and compressed by shared bicycles appeared in multiple recycling stations in Changsha. Bicycles such as Mobike, Haro, and ofo were listed one by one.
Due to the profit-seeking demand of manufacturers, "planned waste" began to appear, but the market lacked a confrontation mechanism, which made the problem of waste products more serious. The limitation of metal resources also makes people nervous, such as the coltan tantalum required for mobile phone antennas to receive Wi-Fi. Mineral deposits are not rich. If this type of metal is exhausted in electronic equipment and cannot be recycled and disposed of well, people may need to pay a greater price for alternatives in the future.
2. Circular economy, "waste trade" appeared and suspended
In the 20 years from 1995 to 2016, China's annual waste imports increased from 4.5 million tons to 46.58 million tons, a tenfold increase. Among them, in 2016 alone China received 56% of the world's export waste. Here, "foreign garbage" is actually regarded as "foreign resources". This resource regeneration method is also an inevitable choice for the development of circular economy.
However, in the face of tens of millions of tons of "foreign garbage", China is not yet fully prepared. China's waste recycling industry is obviously not mature enough in terms of supervision and sorting. Public dissatisfaction. Until 2017, a ban on the entry of foreign garbage was introduced, and people's word for "foreign garbage" came to an end. In fact, whether it is the "dumping" conspiracy of "foreign garbage" or China's big powers, in the final analysis, the demand for raw materials in the domestic market is the ultimate judge. Once there is no need for recycled materials, the sorting and recycling of waste products becomes a behavior of peace of mind.
In the long run, the ultimate goal of the ban is undoubtedly to improve the recycling rate of domestic solid waste, and even force the front-end waste classification to promote the development of circular economy. Taking the waste plastics industry as an example, China ’s annual import volume of waste plastics soared from 300,000 tons in 1992 to 7.34 million tons in 2016. After the “foreign garbage” was sealed, Chinese waste plastics companies have millions of tons of raw materials each year. The gap needs to be filled through domestic waste sorting and solid waste recycling systems.
Garbage collection in the second half, still on the surface of storytelling
Compared with the foreign waste material recycling industry, the domestic renewable resource industry is still in the market-forming period, showing a stable and good development trend. According to relevant data, as of the first half of 2018, there have been more than 5,000 companies engaged in the recycling of renewable resources, more than 3,000 recycling processing plants, about 1.4 million employees, and online stores around the country, about 160,000. . By the end of 2017, the total value of China's top ten varieties of renewable resources recycling had reached 755.07 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28.7%.
Today, the industrial chain of the domestic waste industry has basically been opened, including front-end classification, site recycling, and recycling processing plants. The game whistle of the waste recycling industry has sounded. At the front end of the recycling, the "smart recycling bin" mode is the most common, that is, the use of unmanned intelligent terminals, which take the form of sorting recycling cabinets, garbage bins, garbage kiosks, etc. Take the intelligent renewable resource classification and recycling platform "Little Yellow Dog", "Classify Together" and "I Love Collection" as the industry representatives.
After recycling, there are corresponding manufacturers at the processing end. The papermaking giant Julong Paper has invested a lot in environmental protection facilities in the early stages of its establishment. It has a unique advantage in the treatment of waste paper. Hunan Wanrong Technology has developed for more than ten years. , Has established the "high-priced metal recycling", "urban mineral development" and "urban and rural solid waste resources" industry lines, also achieved good results. Finally, clothing factories and plastic product factories in the upstream and downstream of the waste recycling industry can also basically absorb raw materials from processing plants.
However, behind the good story, there are still some hidden dangers.
In the Pearl River Delta, the monthly salaries of professional recycling workers are nearly 10,000 yuan, which is higher than that of ordinary salaried workers. On the one hand, the working environment for waste recycling is poor, and some wastewater and waste gas are emitted during the recycling manufacturing process. In the absence of supervision, pollution is even more difficult to predict, which will affect the physical health of workers. On the other hand, this type of work is more professional than outsiders imagined. Before the appropriate machines were invented (at present, there is no fully automated classification Garbage equipment), a lot of work depends on labor-different color plastic bottles need to be sorted, and different material bottle mouths and bottle bodies also need to be separated.
In addition, the source of raw materials for waste recycling companies is complex. Most of them purchase waste materials from a large number of individual households. This recycling method accounts for more than 80% of the total amount of recycling. The problem with this recycling method is that it is difficult for recycling companies to obtain input deductions for value added tax, resulting in excessive tax burden. Another impact is that there are many “retailers” in the recycling process. These retailers do not have to pay taxes, but they will purchase waste materials from the producers and wasteholders under the two systems of “with fares” and “no fares” to make profits from them. At the same time, the living space of formal recycling companies will be limited.
"Heavy and heavy," technology is "centering pills"
Today's waste recycling industry is still in a period of scattered warriors, with obvious characteristics of small, scattered, and poor. Extensive operation has greatly weakened the ability of traditional recycling companies and employees to resist risks. Ironworking also requires its own hard work, and in order to build a moat for the enterprise, it must also continue to exert its strength in technology.
In the waste recycling industry, classification and recycling are the head links on the industrial chain, and the classification of residents is at the forefront of the head. How can the residents cooperate with the classification? Many companies provide their own technical solutions. The "Little Yellow Dog" mentioned above is taken as an example. Its recycling machine is equipped with Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud services, real-time payment systems and other technologies, which not only realizes intelligent recycling, but also allows residents to sell waste online. , Withdraw; the platform represented by "classify together" has set up an online mall service, and the rewarded environmental protection points can be directly consumed in the online mall; Shenzhen's "Youfumeijia" is devoted to the development of waste classification APP, and is close to The 10 volunteer associations cooperate to encourage residents to replace waste products in the form of "points for gifts".
With the improvement of environmental protection concepts and material technology, the industry has begun to lean towards the tail of "sales", and the "top-heavy" normal state has changed, that is, sorting and recycling is no longer the sole key of the industry, but the use of recycled materials. Sold and used. Design studio Gomi recently made a Bluetooth speaker. Its colored marble effect body is made of 100 non-recyclable flexible plastic products. Once the product was launched, it was praised by many environmentalists.
In the "top-to-toe" format, technology is not enough to empower the "foot link". For example, when a designer wants to use recycled materials for design, he needs to answer many questions, such as materials Parameter data such as cleanliness, type, size, and molding method, but in fact, designers do not know the answer.
In this regard, manufacturers need to continuously strengthen the "marketing" and "information" labels, and do the entrance layout of mobile applications, that is, user-oriented, that is, the demand resolution route. After all, platformization is the guarantee of normalized transactions. IBM will There is a "smart waste management platform" that allows users to quickly and automatically organize the information involved in the waste management process.
In addition, the establishment of a recycling industrial park is also a good ecological solution. In this regard, Anhui, Hunan, Heilongjiang and other provinces have made efforts. Taking Hunan Province as an example, Wan Rong has opened up solid waste resources and electronic waste in Yueyang Miluo. In the upstream and downstream industries such as plastics and plastics, the throughput of the Miluo Recycling Industrial Park established is very huge. Only the waste household appliances are processed, and its processing capacity has reached 2.8 million units per year.
in conclusion:
In general, the waste recycling industry is an industry that is underestimated by society, but with the continuous progress of social life, the development of the waste recycling industry will become better and better. Of course, there are still some "reefs" under this blue ocean. Breaking them down with technology is undoubtedly a good way out.