Foam plastic ban will make more serious “white pollution”
The experts believe that the waste food trays can be used as plastic daily necessities, frames, building materials; there are users online think that the recycling system is imperfect, the ban will be more confusion
The foam food trays is difficult to degrade, if buried in the ground, it may not rot for many years, Yanghudi said that plastic products are more difficult to degrade, there is no some water, soil and other environmental conditions, they are difficult to degrade.
Tang SaiZhen said that the most reasonable approach is to establish a recycling system, start from the management to avoid white pollution. The polystyrene food trays are processed, can be made plastic items, photo frames, construction materials and coatings. “The current plastics recycling technology is already very mature.” Tang SaiZhen said processing equipment in China, GREENMAX Styrofoam recycling machine is improved. Tang Saizhen believes that foreign experience has proved that as long as the management in place, recycling foam lunch boxes can save resources.
But Yanghuidi said foam PSP recycling is also facing some problems. Polystyrene foam is lightweight and large volume, need to compress before the transportation. Otherwise, the transportation and store costs are higher. In addition, disposable tableware varieties, must be classified, separate the degradable, non-degradable tableware, otherwise it will affect the quality of recycled products.
“Recycling is a public work, recycling income is limited, need to be government policy support.” Yanghuidi said that in the 1990s, Shanghai held the “3 cents project”, namely producing a lunch box, paying 3 cents to the government. Governments use the funds to subsidize recycling companies. However, this policy was not taken in “the whole country”, Shanghai surrounding areas due to the foam lunch boxes manufacturers cost advantages, occupied the local market. Yanghuidi recommended learn Shanghai “3 cents Project” experience, to establish “the whole country” recycling system.
According to the National Development and Reform Commission on the “disposable foam plastic dinnerware” adjustments, the reasons of disposable foam plastic tableware lifted include “to reduce the consumption of raw materials, saving oil resources, and can be recycled after use” and so on. But many people believe that the ban should not only be considered “economic accounts”, “green account”, more in solving technical problems before degradation and the establishment of a complete recycling system, the ban will make more serious “white pollution”.