On June 1, the degradability and labeling requirements for biodegradable plastics and products and biodegradable drinking straws previously issued by the State Administration of market supervision and Administration officially began to be implemented. These two standards clearly stipulate the degradation performance requirements, marking requirements and inspection methods of relevant products, and standardize and guide the healthy development of the industry.

At present, the blue ocean market behind the degradable plastics industry has attracted capital. Since this year, Huayang new material (600281.sh), HuaSu Co., Ltd. (600935.sh), hejunzheng group (601216.sh) and other enterprises have announced their entry into the degradable plastics industry.

In this regard, in an interview with the reporter of China business daily, Zhongyan Puhua researcher Zhang Xing said that since the introduction of the "plastic restriction order" policy, biodegradable plastics have attracted market attention, especially in the context of "double carbon", biodegradable environmental protection materials have become the focus of social attention. The development of new bio based materials can effectively control "white pollution" and promote the construction of social ecological system, which is of great significance. Degradable plastics is one of the development directions of national strategic emerging industries, and the future market space is broad.

New space of trillion market

Degradable plastics refer to a kind of plastics whose properties can meet the use requirements, whose properties remain unchanged during the storage period, and which can degrade into environmentally friendly substances under natural environmental conditions after use. At present, degradable plastics mainly include PLA, PBAT, PHA, PGA and other products.

PBAT belongs to thermoplastic biodegradable plastics, and one of the main raw materials is BDO. It has the characteristics of PBA and PBT. It has not only good ductility and elongation at break, but also good heat resistance and impact properties.

In recent years, the top-level design of plastic pollution control in China has been continuously improved. On january19,2020, according to the opinions on further strengthening plastic pollution control (also known as the new "plastic restriction order" in the industry) issued by the national development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of ecological environment, the overall work of plastic pollution control was actively and steadily promoted step by step and in different fields according to the three time periods of 2020, 2022 and 2025, and the production, sales and use of some plastic products were prohibited or restricted in some regions and fields. Driven by relevant policies, the replacement rate of degradable plastics has risen rapidly, and the market demand has shown a rapid growth trend.

The reporter learned that under the guidance of national policies, local governments have also issued supporting policies and implementation regulations to vigorously support the R & D, production and use of degradable plastics, and actively promote the replacement process of degradable plastics to traditional plastics. Degradable plastics will usher in broad market development prospects.

Zhang Xing told reporters that since the introduction of the "plastic restriction order" policy, degradable plastics have attracted the attention of the market, especially in the context of "double carbon", degradable environmental protection materials have become the focus of social attention. The development of new bio based materials can effectively control "white pollution" and promote the construction of social ecological system, which is of great significance. Degradable plastics is one of the development directions of national strategic emerging industries, and the future market space is broad.

He said that China is a big plastic consumer in the world, and its plastic consumption accounts for 15% of the world. According to the data released by grand view research, the scale of China's plastic packaging market in 2019 is US $54.1 billion. It is estimated that by 2025, the scale of China's plastic packaging market will reach US $69.8 billion. Based on the 30% replacement rate of degradable plastics, it is estimated that the scale of China's degradable plastics market in 2025 will be about US $20.9 billion. In general, the market prospect of degradable plastics in China is broad, and the development of the industry can be expected.

According to the prediction of China Merchants Securities, by the end of 2022, the new demand increment of degradable plastics is expected to reach 2.27 million tons; By 2025, the new demand for degradable plastics is expected to exceed 4million tons, and the future space is very broad. In addition, the Research Report of Guohai Securities pointed out that, driven by the policy, it is predicted that the total market demand for degradable plastics in China will reach 4.15 million tons by 2025, which is 9.23 times the demand in 2018. Based on the unit price of 20000 yuan / ton, the market space will be 83billion yuan.

In this regard, Li Li, senior analyst of jinlianchuang plastics, told reporters that according to the statistics of the plastic recycling Professional Committee of China Plastics Association, China uses about 3billion plastic bags every day, of which 1billion are only used to buy vegetables. According to the statistics of the National Bureau of statistics, the national output of plastic products in 2021 will be 80.04 million tons. One ton of polyethylene can be used as 130000 plastic bags at most. Nearly 7700 ~ 23100 tons of raw materials can be consumed every day. If the current main raw materials are 8900 ~ 9400 yuan / ton, the amount of plastic consumed every day is 68.53 million ~ 217.14 million yuan. The annual amount of light plastic bags will reach 25 billion to 79.2 billion yuan. In addition, the price of degradable plastic products is basically more than 20000 ~ 40000 yuan / ton. Affected by foreign policies restricting the use of non degradable plastics, the global replacement opportunities may reach trillion yuan.

Capital entering the market

There is a huge gap in market space, and many enterprises have laid out early.

Huayang new material 60000 T / a PBAT biodegradable new materials and 20000 t / a biodegradable plastic products projects were started last year. At present, the overall progress of the project is smooth. On April 10, the company's 300000 t / a PBAT project phase I 100000 t / a PBAT project and the supporting 200000 t / a 1,4-butanediol (BDO) project were approved by Shanxi state owned Capital Operation Co., Ltd.

A person from the Securities Department of Huayang Xincai told reporters that China is a large plastic consumer, and the problem of "white pollution" is serious. The biodegradable plastic produced by PBAT is a mature alternative to new materials at present. Driven by domestic industrial policies, a large number of traditional plastic products will be replaced by clean, reliable and degradable plastic products. It is expected that by 2025, the domestic biodegradable plastic market will have a rapid growth, forming a market scale of 10 billion.

Huayang new material said that at present, the biodegradable plastic industry has a short development time in China. After the completion of the above-mentioned projects, it can help listed companies seize the market opportunity and significantly improve their profitability.

In addition to Huayang new materials, HuaSu Co., Ltd., Junzheng group and other companies are also adding weight to the layout.

On March 25, HuaSu disclosed that it planned to build a 120000 ton / year PBAT and PBS integration project, with a planned investment of 2.4 billion yuan.

In addition, on April 8, Junzheng Group officially started the first phase of the green environmental protection circular industry project with a total amount of 20.7 billion yuan in Wuda Industrial Park, Wuhai City, Inner Mongolia. The project is to build the BDO with an annual output of 2*600000 tons and pbat/pbs/pbt/ptmeg degradable plastic recycling industry with an annual output of 2*1million tons in Wuhai Wuda Industrial Park.

Junzheng group said that the degradable plastics industry with BDO production as the core has obvious advantages in Wuhai. As the downstream industry of BDO, pbat/pbs/pbt in the project will fully integrate the company in Wuhai production base Wuda Industrial Park to form an industrial chain circular economy, which has good economic benefits.

Zhang Xing told the reporter that with the continuous implementation of local policies in recent years, the market space for degradable plastics will be gradually opened in the future. Enterprises have accelerated the investment layout of related products and expanded or newly built production capacity one after another. At present, the permeability of degradable plastics in China is still low, and the market gap is large, so there is a large development space in the future.

At the same time, Li Li said that at present, there are only a few manufacturers of degradable plastics with very little production capacity. At present, the overall production capacity is more than 400000 tons, and some of them need to be exported. On the whole, China is in a state of serious shortage of supply. Although a large number of enterprises have announced their participation in this field or have plans to approve devices, the construction needs time, which needs to be released gradually, and our demand is also rising synchronously. In addition, at present, most of the substitute products in China are disposable plastic products, which are the main body of environmental pollution. What the world needs to solve is to reduce the pollution of disposable products, so there is a problem of homogenization in the early product positioning. It will be gradually extended to more fields after it reaches a certain scale of substitution, which is the need of environmental protection development and the market.

After a large number of homogeneous production capacity is put into operation, market competition is inevitable. With the development of high-tech production technology, the technical bottleneck of various new materials will be broken through, the production cost will be reduced, and the market competition will be more intense, thus reducing the product profit margin.

In this regard, Zhang Xing said that at present, the degradable plastic market presents a "small but scattered" development trend. Small enterprises are more concentrated on low-end products, lack of corresponding layout in the research and development of high-end products, and are difficult to improve the added value of products, facing high market competition pressure. With the production expansion of a large number of enterprises, it is expected that the low-end products in the degradable plastics industry will show a development pattern of excess production capacity, which requires product quality improvement and upgrading.