Under the urgent situation of global control of plastic pollution, the 2025 global commitment led by the Allen MacArthur Foundation and the United Nations Environment Program, 500 organizations, including international brand companies, cover 20% of the global consumption of plastic packaging. Almost all international famous brands have signed commitments, including Nestle, Pepsi, Unilever, Coca Cola, L'Oreal, Mars, etc. At the same time, the global plastics convention led by the United Nations and the plastics convention at the national level are also being promoted. For example, the United States plastics convention promises to use 30% recycled plastics in all plastic packaging by 2025.
At present, the international actions to deal with the plastic circular economy are basically promoting PCR. Apple, HP, Dell, Lenovo, Mercedes Benz, Adidas, Nike, puma, Zara, h&m The supply chain is required to use PCR materials to replace traditional materials. It can be seen that PCR materials are becoming a potential stock in the capital and consumer markets.
Asia is the main producing area for the supply of recycled plastics. However, due to the relatively backward development of the recycling system, the traditional plastics recycling still aims to reduce the cost, and does not emphasize the distinction and importance of "post consumption (PCR)" and "pre consumption (PIR)". The market has the quality risk of vague concept, unclear source, unclear classification, and even "fraud", which has become an obstacle for it to enter the international market. Therefore, how to regulate the PCR market and prevent bad money from expelling good money is an urgent problem to be solved.
Many people think that PCR is another way of saying recycled plastics! This is wrong!
Post consumer recycling (PCR) refers to the plastics that are produced after the raw materials are collected from households or commercial, industrial and organizational institutions through recycling channels and used as the end users of products and can no longer be used for their original purposes. This includes the plastics returned from the logistics distribution chain, such as used food and daily chemical packaging, household appliances, automobile disassembly, etc.
"Recycled plastics" include post industrial recycling (PIR) in addition to post consumer recycled plastics. Generally, the raw materials come from the factory production. The plastics (commonly known as Shuikou materials), sub brand materials, defective products, etc. transferred from the excess waste stream generated by the processing process can often be directly reused by the factory and are not easy to leak into the environment.
What is the difference between the two?
Obviously, the volume of PCR is much higher than that of PIR. If the plastic waste that completes the consumption mission is not recycled, it will bring huge pollution every year. Therefore, "post consumer recycled plastics" have higher environmental protection significance and market value. The "proportional use of recycled plastics" advocated by consumer goods brands are "post consumer recycled plastics".
"Post consumer recycled plastics (PCR)" is the recycled plastics that the plastic value chain really needs to recycle in order to achieve the goal of sustainable development.
