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1. Industry advantage analysis

In recent years, the global market demand for fully biodegradable plastics has increased rapidly. In Asia and America, the market of fully biodegradable plastic products has also made rapid development. Southeast Asia, South America, Oceania and other places have begun to replace polyethylene bags with fully biodegradable plastics on a large scale. China's restrictions and bans on foreign plastic waste have also significantly promoted the conversion of fully biodegradable bags around the world. Many domestic traditional products enterprises are transforming to fully biodegradable plastics. Fully biodegradable plastic films have been commercially sold in some areas. The waste classification vigorously promoted in China also provides a huge market space for fully biodegradable plastics.

In 2012, the global demand for biodegradable plastics was 269000 tons, and in 2020, the global demand for biodegradable plastics was 523000 tons, with a compound annual growth rate of 5%

Global demand for biodegradable plastics from 2012 to 2020

Data source: IHS

2. Industry disadvantage analysis

The degradation technology is still immature, such as photodegradable materials and photodegradable plastics, which are affected by many uncertain factors, such as light, oxygen, etc. the required degradation time and speed are also uncontrollable, so the overall degradation performance is not high. In addition, it is not clear whether the secondary products of plastic photolysis are harmful to the environment.

Second, the price of degradable plastic products is much higher than that of ordinary plastics because of the high price of materials used and the complex production process. For example, the price of Degradable Polypropylene lunch box is 50% ~ 80% higher than that of ordinary lunch box. Therefore, in terms of consumption habits, this degradable material may encounter some obstacles in the promotion.

Cost comparison between degradable plastics and ordinary plastics in China in 2020

Data source: financial reports of various companies, sorted out by Guanyan Tianxia data center

At present, China has a large number of degradable plastics production enterprises, fierce industrial competition and uneven overall technical capacity. During the 13th Five Year Plan period, due to many macro reasons such as the Sino US trade war, downstream enterprises need to cope with possible supply risks by realizing the localization of raw materials. In the future, with the stimulation of China's domestic policies and demand, there will be more excellent enterprises with excellent technology. The homogenization of industry technology will become more and more serious, and the market competition will become more and more fierce. Enterprises lacking core technology and poor product quality will face the situation of being eliminated by the market, and the in-depth reshuffle of the industry is inevitable.

3. Industry opportunity analysis

In recent years, developed countries and regions such as Europe, the United States and Japan have successively formulated and issued relevant laws and regulations to restrict the use of non degradable plastics through local prohibition, restriction, compulsory collection and collection of pollution tax, and vigorously develop new biodegradable materials to protect the environment and soil.

From 2019 to 2020, many countries in Asia have issued plastic restriction policies, including China, Pakistan, India, the Philippines, Thailand, Algeria and other countries. In the coming period, the demand for biodegradable plastics in Asia will grow rapidly, which is expected to replace Europe as the largest consumer market of biodegradable plastics.

In Europe, in addition to the stable growth in the plastic prohibited areas, the market of fully biodegradable bags has been transformed from shopping bags to fully biodegradable bags in more countries. The application fields have gradually expanded from the initial shopping bags and garbage bags to a variety of products such as pet bags, express bags and packaging. In South America, due to the lack of synthetic industry of fully biodegradable basic raw materials such as PBAT, some countries and regions even lack plastic processing industry. These countries and regions have begun to import fully biodegradable plastic raw materials and products from China. More manufacturers and traders engaged in fully biodegradable plastic products have emerged in North America. In Asia, India and South Korea are the newly emerging fully biodegradable plastic bag market. In the Oceania market, in addition to the stable development of the Australian market, the New Zealand market is the largest explosive point. New Zealand's local plastic industry is underdeveloped. At present, it has begun to import fully biodegradable raw materials and products from China and other places.

In China, fully biodegradable plastic film has been commercially sold in some areas and crops. Compared with the soil degradability of ordinary polyethylene film, fully biodegradable film provides incomparable convenience and functionality for the cultivation of some crops, supports large-scale mechanized operation and improves agricultural efficiency. As the "degradable plastic" products of polyethylene photo oxygen additives have been banned in Europe, the industry expects that the polyethylene additive degradable plastic film will be phased out in China and concentrated on the fully biodegradable film products. Fully biodegradable bags can also provide great convenience for kitchen waste and other organic waste, and there is no other functional more suitable alternative products. According to the benchmarking and analysis of the situation in Europe, only the four major cities in North, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, waste classification will generate a potential market demand of 100000-300000 tons for fully biodegradable bags.

4. Industry threat analysis

Biodegradable plastic products on the market are mixed and chaotic. Some manufacturers are suspected of using environmental protection terms such as "degradable" and "biodegradable" to mislead consumers and carry out false and exaggerated publicity. Some manufacturers confuse the concepts of bio based and biodegradable. In fact, the term bio based refers to the source of material components. In other words, bio based plastics are not necessarily biodegradable; For another example, measuring the biodegradability of products in accordance with relevant method standards is not equivalent to that the test results of product biodegradability meet the requirements of relevant compliance standards, but some manufacturers compare the two.

Second, although the policy clearly proposes to support the promotion and application of biodegradable plastics, there are no clear provisions on how to recycle and dispose of such materials and products for the time being; Whether all localities have corresponding classified collection and disposal capacity is a key and difficult issue concerned by all sectors of society.