"According to the data released by the European Plastic Manufacturers Association, the global plastic production and consumption will continue to grow. In 2020, the production will be 367million tons, and the per capita consumption will be 46 kg. It is expected that by 2050, the plastic production will reach 1.1 billion tons." On June 6, at the kick-off meeting of the "national action to end plastic pollution", wangyonggang, Secretary General of the recycled plastics branch of the China Materials Recycling Association, said.
On the same day, the plastic baseline report "production, consumption, waste and recycling of plastics from the world to China" (hereinafter referred to as the report) was officially released.
Data show that from 1950 to 2017, the world produced about 9.2 billion tons of plastic in total. It is estimated that by 2050, the world's cumulative plastic production will increase to 34 billion tons, and the annual plastic waste production will be about 300 million tons. The domestic situation is also not optimistic. China has become the world's largest plastic producer and plastic products producer. In 2021, China produced 110million tons of plastics, imported 33.97 million tons, and produced more than 80 million tons of plastic products.
It has to be said that plastics have brought great convenience to people's lives, but at the same time, the problem of pollution should not be underestimated.
"We must not fall into the 'plastic' trap and embrace nature." The experts at the meeting called for that all plastic products will cause pollution if they are not reasonably disposed of after being discarded.
It has become a global consensus to treat waste plastic pollution scientifically and rationally, actively and effectively control man-made leakage, build a scientific and accurate waste management system, reasonably control plastic waste, eliminate disposal pressure, and improve the proportion of resource utilization.
Wangyonggang introduced that at present, there are four disposal methods of waste plastics, including physical recycling, chemical recycling, landfill and incineration. In 2019, the global plastic recovery rate was about 9%. China recovered 18.9 million tons, with an apparent recovery rate of 30%; The EU recovered 9.46 million tons, with a recovery rate of 32.51%; The United States recovered 2.8 million tons, with a recovery rate of 8.65%; Japan recovered 1857000 tons, with a recovery rate of 21.84%.
In the opinion of experts, the collection rate and recycling rate of waste plastics in the world have been at a low level, which generally can not meet the disposal needs. Except for the export part, the scale of physical recovery, chemical recovery, landfill and incineration varies in different regions. Among the major economies, the United States has the highest landfill rate and Japan has the highest proportion of incineration power generation. However, landfill is an incomplete disposal method. Although incineration is complete, it has a great impact on the environment.
"To reduce plastic pollution, we must integrate plastic reduction punching into our daily life and develop our habits and behaviors during play." At the scene, liuxuesong, the founder of Beijing baopu renewable environmental protection technology Co., Ltd., introduced the playing method of the nationwide plastic reduction punch card activity based on the development of baopu low-carbon life applet, hoping that more people would participate and contribute to the solution of plastic pollution.
Not only individuals, but also consumer goods brand enterprises also pay close attention to the problem of plastic waste. In the implementation path, they all chose the 4R principle, that is, reduce, recycle, reuse and replace.
