3 Compartments Black Plastic Disposable Biodegradable Microwave Safe Lunch Box To Go Hot Food Storage Containers With Lids

With the spread of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in many places, working from home has become the choice of many people, and "ordering takeaways" has also become a part of life, but the increase in waste plastic lunch boxes has once again attracted attention from all walks of life——

The spread of the epidemic in many places has made the takeaway brothers in the city even busier. They shuttle between the streets and buildings, bringing hot meals to people who work and live at home, but at the same time, the number of plastic lunch boxes in the garbage bins in the community is also increasing day by day, burying hidden dangers for environmental pollution.

What to do with these waste lunch boxes?

Waste plastic lunch boxes are widely used

"How to reduce the use of plastic lunch boxes? How to recycle plastic lunch boxes?" As a platform company, Meituan's takeaway catering business sector accounts for a large proportion of the entire business field, and because of this, how to deal with these Plastic lunch boxes are also a topic that Meituan cannot avoid. At the recent "China Plastic Pollution Control Concept and Practice" report conference, plastic lunch boxes were mentioned again.

"At present, more than 90% of plastic lunch boxes are made of PP plastic, which has a high value of recycling and recycling." Tian Jin, project director of Meituan's "Qingshan Project" said, "Maybe many people do not know that discarded plastic lunch boxes Can be recycled individually."

In fact, as early as 2017, Meituan paid attention to the issue of plastic take-out packaging, and launched the "Qingshan Project" in August of that year.

"The 'Qingshan Plan' focuses on the vision of 'better life, more beautiful nature', and sets up four major sectors: green packaging, low-carbon ecology, Tsingshan technology, and Tsingshan public welfare, focusing on the green and low-carbon development of the life service industry, and driving ecological Build and share." Tian Jin said.

On the one hand, Meituan leveraged the capabilities of Internet products to promote the "source reduction" of tableware, and launched the "no tableware option" on the takeaway app, and set it as a mandatory option for ordering, and guided users to reduce orders through various methods such as public welfare energy incentives. Using disposable tableware, more than 100 million Meituan takeaway users across the country have opted for no tableware.

At the same time, Meituan cooperates with the government, communities, universities, NGOs, catering businesses and recycling companies to explore the classification and recycling model of plastic lunch boxes.

What else can I do with recycled lunch boxes?

"Waste plastics can be recycled, sorted, crushed, cleaned, melted and granulated to form recycled plastics and put into new production links. The emergence of the recycled plastics industry has reduced the environmental pollution caused by the landfill and incineration of waste plastics. "Wang Yonggang, Secretary General of the Recycled Plastics Branch of China Materials Recycling Association, said, "Plastic lunch boxes are recycled and processed into plastics to form PP recycled granules. Its downstream applications are very wide, and it is a relatively high-quality source of recycled materials."

According to the data provided by the China Materials Recycling Association, after the plastic lunch boxes are recycled and processed into pellets, there is no use at the same level. 28% are used in the packaging industry, 22% in the building materials industry, and 14% in the automobile industry. The agricultural industry accounted for 13.5%, and the electronic appliances and household industries accounted for 11% and 9% respectively.

The recycling rate of lunch boxes is closely related to the garbage sorting system

Since discarded lunch boxes are a "treasure", who will collect them? How did you get it?

In order to better build a plastic lunch box recycling chain and promote the sustainable operation of the recycling and recycling industry system, China Materials Recycling Association and Meituan conducted a survey and released the "Plastic Lunch Box Recycling Research Report" (hereinafter referred to as the report) , the report also found out the "family" for the first time for the discarded lunch boxes.

The report shows that in 2020, the use of lunch boxes will be about 1.07 million tons, the inventory will be about 130,000 tons, and the recycling volume will be about 250,000 tons. The national average recycling rate is about 23.3%, slightly lower than the national overall recycling rate of waste plastics of 26.7% in 2020. .

"The recycling of lunch boxes involves multiple parties and a complex recycling process system. Residents, communities, sanitation departments, garbage transfer stations, environmental protection enterprises and other subjects participate together, from the disposal of lunch boxes, classification (separation of food waste), collection , transportation and recycling and recycling constitute the process system of lunch box recycling or disposal." Wang Yonggang said.

According to the survey, the current plastic lunch box recycling modes mainly include market-driven, spontaneous dispersion; enterprise-led, centralized collection and transportation; government-enterprise cooperation, and the integration of the two networks.

According to the data, Meituan’s first city-level lunch box recycling pilot was set up in Xiamen. The project covers 4 districts and more than 1,000 communities and units in Xiamen. After landing in 2021, the amount of recycled plastic lunch boxes exceeds 1,000 tons.

Subsequently, in October 2021, it cooperated with AiClassification and Aihuishou to launch a lunch box recycling project in Yangpu District, Shanghai, and replaced intelligent recycling machines including plastic lunch box recycling categories in Yangpu District. By the end of 2021, the average daily lunch box recycling volume has reached 3 tons/day.

However, the survey report also shows that, affected by factors such as the implementation and execution of the garbage classification system, the improvement of urban recycling infrastructure, consumer awareness and participation, the concentration of lunch box consumption, and the supporting industries of surrounding recycling industries, different regions The recycling of discarded lunch boxes is not the same.

According to reports, the report obtained the estimated value of the recovery rate in the urban area through on-the-spot inspection of the statistics of the recycling volume in the six urban areas of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Xiamen and the comparison of the recycling and recycling industry data in the area.

The survey found that the recycling rate in some areas can be as high as 60% or more, which is higher than the overall recycling rate of waste plastics in the country. In areas with developed economy, effective implementation of garbage classification system, and surrounding recycling enterprises, the recycling rate of lunch boxes is relatively high.

In economically developed areas in my country, such as the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, the southeast coast, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, etc., discarded lunch boxes belong to the categories that are easy to recycle, and the recycling activities of disposable plastic lunch boxes are more active; in the relatively backward economy, there is no supporting recycling around In areas that utilize businesses, there is less recycling activity for lunch boxes.

High-value utilization can only be achieved by collecting all receivables

This also means that the recycling of lunch boxes is not a matter of a certain industry, but requires the coordinated efforts of the entire industry chain.

"The current problems and challenges in the industry are mainly in several aspects: First, most local waste classification standards do not include waste plastic lunch boxes into the system of low-value recyclables. A large number of lunch boxes are treated as other waste, which restricts local The recycling of lunch boxes can only be carried out by local spontaneous and scattered individual merchants; the second is that consumers have insufficient awareness of the recyclability of lunch boxes, and the participation in the classification of lunch boxes is not high. Three-party implementation, the overall sorting efficiency is not high." Wang Yonggang said.

Wang Yonggang especially mentioned that the lack of full life cycle management has also affected the lunch box recycling process.

"The low degree of 'standardization' of lunch boxes affects the quality of recycling. In terms of specifications, there is no unified standard for the production of lunch boxes in my country, and large design differences cause a large amount of packaging space, resulting in low clearance and transportation efficiency. In terms of materials, different The mixing of materials (colors) is not conducive to the high-value utilization of recycled materials. Secondly, there is a lack of necessary recycling infrastructure in major urban areas. The technical equipment and management levels of plastic recycling are uneven." Wang Yonggang said.

In fact, during the two sessions this year, many members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference also suggested that a special plastic sorting center should be built in the city to realize the "collection of waste plastics".

Feng Shouhua, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, suggested that local governments should increase land use planning for recycling infrastructure such as sorting centers. At the same time, considering the local reality, it is considered to provide certain financial support or free land use policy for recycling enterprises to promote the construction of sorting centers in various places.

"The government should also encourage recycling companies to cooperate with the sanitation system, make full use of existing recycling facilities, and formulate flexible cooperation plans to help recycling companies reduce the operating costs of front-end collection in response to the high price of land in existing urban built-up areas. To achieve 'receivable collection' of recyclables, but also to achieve high-value utilization." Feng Shouhua said.