Recently, the Ministry of ecological environment issued the technical specification for pollution control of waste plastics (HJ 364-2022) (hereinafter referred to as the "specification"). As of the date of promulgation, the technical specifications for pollution control of waste plastic recycling and recycling (Trial) formulated by the former State Environmental Protection Administration in 2007 shall be abolished.
Lu Yanan, an analyst of jinlianchuang plastics, said in an interview with the reporter of China Business Daily that the implementation of the above specifications is to clarify the recycling method of waste plastics based on the 2007 edition, clarify the control requirements from the generation source and add the green design of plastic products, and integrate the concept of recyclability into it, including the requirements for the establishment of recycling accounts. Among them, the concept of preventing "secondary pollution" is emphasized in many requirements. Some small workshops, especially small enterprises that fail to deal with environmental pollution, will inevitably be phased out.
A person from the Securities Department of a listed company in the industry told the reporter that it is not difficult to see the determination of the state to promote the development of the recycled plastics industry from a number of policies issued in recent years. The person believed that the code would accelerate the company's production expansion plan and fill the market vacancy. In terms of products, the products of large companies can meet different needs in terms of quality and modification functions. This advantage has also laid a foundation for the expansion of production.
Policy driven
Recycled plastics refer to the plastic raw materials obtained from the processing of waste plastics through physical or chemical methods such as pretreatment, melting granulation and modification. It is the reuse of plastics. The biggest advantage of recycled plastics is that they are cheaper than new materials and degradable plastics, and they can only process certain properties of plastics and produce corresponding products according to different performance needs. For example, post consumer recycled plastics (PCR plastics) can be used in packaging, consumer electronics, automotive, sports and leisure industries.
The reporter learned that the domestic plastic recycling has entered the fast lane of development since the mid-1990s. At that time, a large number of renewable plastics abroad urgently needed compliance treatment, and domestic enterprises could recover renewable plastics from abroad at a lower cost. During this period, tens of thousands of family workshop enterprises have been successively promoted to enter the renewable plastic comprehensive utilization industry.
However, the treatment process used by family workshop enterprises is relatively simple, the impurity removal and separation technology is not mature, and the added value of recycled plastics is low, causing secondary pollution to the environment.
In 2017, after the "waste prohibition order" came into effect, the channels for importing waste plastics were closed, but the domestic recycling network is still relatively scattered. How to obtain a stable source of renewable plastics has become a common problem faced by enterprises. A small number of recycled plastic processing enterprises have moved their production capacity abroad, and some large and medium-sized enterprises have begun to set up domestic recycling networks.
From the policy perspective, in 2021, the state has successively issued a number of policies to accelerate the development of recycled plastics industry.
In february2021, the guiding opinions on accelerating the establishment and improvement of a green low-carbon circular development economic system issued by the State Council proposed to accelerate the construction of a recycling system for waste materials and strengthen the recycling of waste plastics. In march2021, the NPC and CPPCC were authorized to issue the 14th five year plan for national economic and social development of the people's Republic of China and the outline of long-term goals for 2035, which proposed to strengthen the whole chain prevention and control of plastic pollution, comprehensively implement the concept of circular economy, and build a multi-level resource efficient recycling system.
In July, 2021, the circular economy development plan of the 14th five year plan issued by the national development and Reform Commission proposed to strengthen the classified recycling and recycling of plastic waste; In September, the national development and Reform Commission issued the action plan for plastic pollution control during the 14th Five Year Plan period, which clearly defined the task of increasing the recycling of plastic wastes, supported the construction of recycling projects of plastic wastes, issued a list of standardized enterprises for comprehensive utilization of waste plastics, guided relevant projects to gather in parks such as resource recycling bases and industrial resource comprehensive utilization bases, and promoted the large-scale, standardized and Clean development; In December, the Ministry of industry and information technology issued the "14th five year plan" for the development of raw material industry, pointing out that the level of comprehensive utilization of resources should be improved, plastic pollution control and recycling should be accelerated, and the industrialization and application of biodegradable plastics should be promoted.
In addition, under the "double carbon" goal, the opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on completely, accurately and comprehensively implementing the new development concept to do a good job in carbon peak and carbon neutralization and the action plan for carbon peak by 2030 have been issued successively, pointing out that the waste material recycling network should be improved, and the "Internet +" recycling mode should be implemented to achieve the full collection of renewable resources. Strengthen the standardized management of renewable resources comprehensive utilization industry and promote the development of industrial agglomeration. By 2025, the recycling amount of nine major renewable resources, including waste steel, copper, aluminum, lead, zinc, paper, plastic, rubber and glass, will reach 450million tons, and 510million tons by 2030.
"Intensive" development
The release of the specification once again promotes the recycled plastics industry to further develop in the direction of standardization and intensification.
The specification defines "chemical regeneration of waste plastics", that is, the process of converting waste plastics into resin monomers, oligomers, pyrolysis products or Syngas by chemical methods. It is pointed out that the production, collection, recycling and disposal of waste plastics should not only meet the relevant requirements of ecological environment protection, but also meet the relevant requirements of national laws and standards on safety production, occupational health, transportation, fire protection, etc.
The main environmental pollutants involved in the production and operation of plastic recycling include wastewater, waste gas, noise and solid waste.
In this regard, the code points out that the pretreatment of waste plastics should control secondary pollution. The emission of air pollutants shall comply with the provisions of gb31572, gb16297, gb37822 and other standards. The emission of odor pollutants shall comply with the provisions of gb14554. Wastewater control shall implement relevant national and local discharge standards according to the functional requirements or piping requirements of the receiving water body of the effluent. The key pollutant indicators to be controlled include suspended solids, pH value, chromaticity, petroleum, chemical oxygen demand, etc. Noise emission shall comply with gb12348.
In Lu Yanan's opinion, a number of requirements mentioned the problem of secondary pollution, including clear provisions and reference standards for waste gas, waste water, waste residue and even noise pollution, which were implemented to the requirements of the national standard. Recycling enterprises themselves are environmental protection policy enterprises. There are inevitably environmental problems such as waste water and waste gas in the treatment of waste plastics, especially the discharge of waste water in the cleaning process. Moreover, recycling enterprises are mostly concentrated in rural areas, and their discharge problems are often paid less attention. On the road of standardization, considering the cost side, the treatment of waste water or the suspension of recycling and production of some materials is a difficult problem that needs to be challenged and overcome at present.
Enterprises above designated size are superior to enterprises below Designated Size in terms of industrial chain layout, production process, technical level and environmental protection awareness. Their recycled plastic products are stable in supply, high in quality and strong in bargaining power. They mainly supply medium and high-end markets; Enterprises below designated size are often family workshops. Their recycled goods are of uneven quality, their production equipment is old, and they directly emit pollution, causing secondary pollution to the environment. Their recycled plastic products are of poor quality and are mainly supplied to the low-end market.
At present, the domestic industry has the problems of scattered pattern and market differentiation.
China's plastic recycling industry is characterized by a long industrial chain, low entry threshold, insufficient high-end production capacity and fewer Enterprises above designated size.
Public information shows that several industrial clusters are formed in China by family workshops. Representative gathering places include Guiyu and Xingtan in the Pearl River Delta; Cixi and Yuyao in the Yangtze River Delta; Ganyu in Northern Jiangsu; Wen'an and other places in Beijing Tianjin Hebei region. In addition, there are also certain industrial scales in the Middle East of Shandong Province near Qingdao and Yantai, the Dongting Lake region at the junction of Hunan and Hubei, and Dalian in the northeast.
Luyanan said that the implementation of the 2022 edition of the specification is based on the development of renewable enterprises and their process updates in recent years. Compared with the previous links from recycling, cleaning to reuse, it has made more detailed requirements. In particular, in combination with environmental protection policies, it is no longer a simple evasion, but has more standardized suggestions. On the basis of the specification, it also guides renewable enterprises to develop in a more scientific and procedural direction.
Blue ocean market
The plastic processing industry is an important part of China's light industry. Since this century, China's plastic industry has maintained a rapid development trend, with its production and sales ranking first in the world.
According to the data of China Plastics Industry Yearbook 2019, China's plastic resin consumption generally maintained a steady growth in 2018. The annual apparent consumption was 109 million tons, an increase of 1.3% over the previous year. At the same time, choice data show that China's output of plastic products accounts for about 20% of the world's total output. In 2018, China produced 85.58 million tons of plastic resins and copolymers and 60.421 million tons of plastic products.
According to the estimation of China Materials Recycling Association, from 2017 to 2019, the domestic recycling volume of waste plastics continued to grow steadily, and the physical recycling rate of waste plastics has been above 30%. In 2019, the domestic recycling volume of waste plastics was about 18.9 million tons, an increase of 600000 tons over 2018, an increase of 3.3%, and the recycling volume was about 100billion yuan. At the same time, China's recycled plastics industry has the most complete industrial chain, the most refined industrial division, the most abundant industry experience, the most perfect product application and the most diversified operation mode. In 2020, the domestic recycling volume of waste plastics will be about 16million tons.
In addition, according to the statistics and calculation of the recycled plastics branch of China Materials Recycling Association, in 2021, China's recycled waste plastics will be about 19million tons, an increase of about 3million tons compared with 2020 (16million tons), an increase of 19% year-on-year.
It is worth mentioning that, with the promotion of relevant policies in recent years, enterprises such as Goldilocks (600143.sh) and Yingke regeneration (688087.sh), which are leaders in the recycled plastics industry, have benefited.
Among them, in 2020, Jinfa technology achieved 138700 tons of environmentally friendly high-performance recycled plastics, a year-on-year increase of 29.91%; In 2021, the sales volume of recycled plastics reached 182100 tons, a year-on-year increase of 31.29%.
In terms of production capacity, the designed production capacity of recycled plastics of Jinfa technology is 370000 tons / year; At present, there are 109000 tons of new capacity under construction. It is estimated that 50000 tons will be put into operation in 2022 and 59000 tons in 2023; In the future, the company plans to achieve an annual output of 1million tons of environmentally friendly high-performance recycled plastics by 2030.
Jinfa technology said that in 2020, China will produce about 60million tons of waste plastics, with only about 16million tons of recycled plastics, and the overall recovery rate is less than 30%. Environmental friendly high-performance recycled plastics are the key to solving the pollution of plastic wastes and accelerating the upgrading of the recycling industry. The market space is huge, and the industry development has entered the fast lane.
Meanwhile, in 2021, Yingke renewable, which was listed on the science and innovation board, is a high-tech manufacturer of plastic recycling. In that year, it began to build a 100000 t / a regeneration project.
According to the financial report, in 2021, the operating income of Yingke regeneration reached 1.99 billion yuan, an increase of 17.14% year-on-year; The net profit attributable to the parent company was 240million yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 10.35%
