November 10, "Beijing Plastic Pollution Control Action Plan (2020-2025)" (draft) (hereinafter referred to as the "action plan") open for comments.

This Action Plan is the most stringent "plastic restriction" proposed by Beijing, which will focus on six key industries such as catering, take-away platforms, wholesale and retail, e-commerce express delivery, accommodation and exhibition, agricultural production and other key industries to strengthen the efforts to reduce plastic, and to strictly control the leakage of disposable plastic products into the natural environment.

Xue Tao, executive director of the E20 Research Institute, told the 21st Century Business Herald that there is a high probability that Beijing's strict control of plastic waste leakage into the environment will be realized. "At present, Beijing's garbage incineration capacity is relatively strong, through the strengthening of sanitation requirements and financial investment, including river inspections, Beijing's various environmental garbage can still be sent to the garbage incineration plant to burn, and to form a closed-loop, and ultimately realize the strict control of plastic waste leakage to the environment." ?

How to strictly "reduce plastic"?

The Action Plan puts forward, focusing on "a control, a reduction, two promotion, three a batch". "A control" that is, strict control of plastic waste leakage to the environment. "A reduction" that efforts to promote the reduction of non-biodegradable single-use plastic products. "Two promote" that is, actively promote alternative technologies and alternative product supply, and actively promote the classification of plastic waste recovery and recycling.

Xue Tao said, "one control" is relatively easy to realize, relatively speaking, "two promote" lack of business model support. Because plastics are generally low-value recyclables, their value can not be compared with home appliances. And from the current market situation, even the recyclability of home appliances has not done very well. In particular, some contaminated plastics, such as lunch boxes and the like, involve mixing with wet waste and are very difficult to recycle.?

"To put it bluntly, this is a piece that if left entirely to the market, sorted recycling is difficult to achieve because it is not commercially viable. If you want to promote the classification and recycling need to be subsidized, but the market is easy to distort after the subsidy, resulting in subsidies or not subsidized are problematic, burned is simpler." He said.

In addition, the "three a batch" that is prohibited to limit a number of difficult to recycle, easy to leak the production, sale and use of disposable plastic products; recycling and promotion of a number of new types of packaging and logistics carriers, the establishment of efficient recycling system; synergistic management of a number of key places and along the prominent plastic pollution, and the establishment of a plastic pollution management system system.

At present, these working directions have a lot of landing measures. Beijing proposed, focusing on catering, takeaway platform, wholesale and retail, e-commerce courier, accommodation and exhibition, agricultural production and other six key industries to strengthen plastic reduction.?

Of these, for catering, the Action Plan puts forward that by the end of 2020, Beijing's catering industry banned the use of non-biodegradable disposable plastic straws, coffee stirring sticks; built-up areas take-away (including dine-in packaged food) services are banned the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags; built-up areas, scenic spots, attractions dine-in services are banned the use of non-biodegradable disposable plastic tableware.?

For takeout platforms, takeout platforms are encouraged to set up options such as "no tableware needed" in the ordering process and give points and other forms of rewards. Encourage takeaway platforms to increase publicity efforts to establish the initiative to use biodegradable lunch boxes, reusable lunch boxes (utensils) catering enterprises to fulfill the eco-responsibility of a good image, and through the issuance of platforms "exclusive green coupons" and other measures to guide consumers to choose.

Xue Tao pointed out that the takeaway use of plastic bags is very much, but the current basic pursuit of the full amount of incineration. "So by banning non-degradable plastic bags, can prevent incineration on the full process of some plastic leakage risk, but the overall impact is not really great. On the other hand, if you want to recycle and more difficult, many are currently manual sorting, the cost is higher." ?

In addition to catering and takeout, shopping venues such as farmers' markets and express delivery are also key areas of strict control of plastic use. Among other things, by the end of 2025, the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags will be banned in farmers' markets in Beijing's built-up areas.?

Additionally, for the courier industry, by the end of 2020, Beijing postal courier and e-commerce distribution outlets, "thin tape" encapsulation ratio of 90%, recycling bag utilization rate of 95% or more. By the end of 2022, Beijing postal express outlets prohibit the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags, woven bags, etc., the use of recycled transit bags reached 100%. By the end of 2025, Beijing postal express outlets prohibit the use of non-degradable plastic tape.

Biodegradable wind mouth again? ?

It should be noted that Beijing also specifically for agriculture to carry out the provisions of plastic reduction, such as in the city's rural areas to promote the use of 0.014 millimeters (including) or more film, to carry out all-biodegradable film experimental demonstration and testing of film residues, to take the old for the new, the main body of the operation to turn in the professional organization to recover and promote the recycling and disposal of waste agricultural films and pesticides, fertilizers, packaging waste, and other ways. Properly dispose of waste seedling trays and water-saving irrigation materials and other agricultural plastic waste.?

In addition, by the end of 2022, basically establish a government-supported, market-led recycling and disposal system for used agricultural film and pesticide and fertilizer packaging waste, with the agricultural film recycling rate reaching more than 90 percent.?

But Xue Tao pointed out that, of these six areas, agricultural "plastic reduction" is more difficult, because catering, takeaway platforms, wholesale and retail, e-commerce courier, accommodation and exhibition are all industries in the city, is a formalized company in operation, easy to control. Comparatively speaking, the institutionalization of rural areas will be weaker, and farmers' risk resistance is weaker, "plastic" if you want to increase the cost is more difficult to promote, and may eventually need to increase the subsidies to achieve, but ultimately brought the financial burden.

In order to realize the "plastic reduction", the above-mentioned "Action Plan" put forward a lot of alternative programs.

For example, catering companies are encouraged to use straw-lined lunch boxes that meet performance and food safety requirements to replace disposable plastic lunch boxes, use straight cups to replace disposable plastic straws, and use reusable shopping bags to replace non-biodegradable plastic bags to reduce the amount of disposable plastic products used.

In addition, encourage e-commerce, express delivery and other areas of enterprises to innovate the logistics model, the use of foldable, recyclable packaging products and logistics and distribution apparatus to replace disposable plastic packaging. Encourage large supermarkets to innovate logistics models, the use of collapsible, recyclable packaging products and logistics and distribution apparatus to replace disposable plastic packaging.

Does this mean that related alternative areas, such as straw laminated lunch boxes, biodegradable plastic bags, etc., will usher in the wind?

It is not easy to see at the moment. Xue Tao pointed out that the biggest problem with the alternatives is that they cost too much, and if they are to be fully realized, they are less controllable from performance to cost, so commercially, a reasonable balance has yet to be found.?

From the Action Plan proposed by Beijing, the above measures are basically incentives, and have no mandatory role, and also indicate that the advancement of alternatives can still only be slow.