Environmental pressure and supply and demand are weak. Where should the recycled plastics industry go?

In recent years, the ecological and environmental problems facing China have become increasingly prominent, and pollution prevention cannot be delayed. At the beginning of July, the State Council issued the "Three-Year Action Plan to Win the Blue Sky Defence War", clearly put forward the overall ideas, basic objectives, main tasks and safeguard measures for the prevention and control of air pollution, and actively implemented through a series of special action measures to ensure By 2020, China's air pollution control will achieve greater results. Recently, the first batch of central environmental protection inspectors have returned to the end. The recycled plastics industry, as the focus of environmental supervision in recent years, has once again become the focus of market attention.

Undoubtedly, "green" has become the main theme of China's current and future development. To this end, the state has successively issued a series of environmental protection policies and regulations prohibiting solid waste import, central environmental protection supervision, tax inspection, etc., and has intensified supervision and inspection, which has brought enormous challenges to plastics enterprises, especially the reinvented plastics industry.

For the recycled plastics industry, the environmental protection situation in 2018 is still very serious. The promotion of national environmental protection and rectification, the manufacturers of recycled plastics have been affected to varying degrees. Since 2011, under the repeated environmental protection inspection activities in China, a large number of enterprises have been shut down, and the overall operating rate of the recycled plastics industry has remained at a low level. Some enterprises are worried about survival and face transformation.

Since the formal implementation of the “prohibition of waste”, the situation of imported recycled materials has become increasingly severe. The State clearly stipulates that only thermoplastic scraps, scraps and defective products can be imported in the Environmental Protection Control Standard for Imported Solid Wastes as Raw Materials. According to statistics, the import volume of China's waste plastics in 2017 was 5.83 million tons, down 20.7% year-on-year, and the import value was 3260283 thousand US dollars, down 11.8% year-on-year. In the context of the country's advocacy of environmentally friendly production, the degree of implementation of later policies will continue to increase.

If environmental protection and rectification shut down small factories and family workshops, the “forbidden waste program” directly affects the supply of large-scale recycled pellet factories, and the entire imported waste plastics recycling granulation industry may be the way forward. Life-source waste plastics have been banned at the end of 2017, and industrial sources will be completely banned by the end of 2018. This means that the history of long-term import of waste materials in China will be ended, and the gap of several million tons of raw materials needs to find a new direction.

The country's restrictions on the import of waste plastics are unstoppable, and the collapse of the recycled plastics industry has made the price increase of raw materials a trend, and the shortage of goods has become the norm. This year, the comprehensive operating rate of recycled plastics in China is only about 30%, and the corresponding supply side has been in a tight state for a long time. As a result, under the pressure of continuous lower prices of new materials, the price of recycled materials is still deadlocked. At the same time, the demand for domestic recycled materials is not good, the market is weak, and production demand will continue to decrease. For example, the market for recycled plastic raw materials such as PE, PP, PVC, ABS, PS, PET, etc. has recently been flat. Most recycled plastics manufacturers have to be cautious and have to withdraw from the market.

Looking at the background of the industry, the recycled plastics industry is currently experiencing an unprecedented development dilemma. On the one hand, under the influence of the national ban on waste, the price of recycled plastics has risen, and the supply of goods from manufacturers is tight. On the other hand, the consumption of recycled materials is decreasing and the demand is not good. The entire renewable materials industry urgently needs to break the market deadlock.

At present, enterprises that have been engaged in the import of recycled materials have turned their attention to the Southeast Asian market, and some manufacturers specializing in imported wool have all shipped and transformed into other industries. Industry sources said that in the future, domestic materials will occupy most of the market, park production will be a major trend of development, and the price of recycled plastic products will also rise all the way, the price gap between new and old materials will continue to shrink, and some manufacturers may turn to new materials. demand.

However, at present, the quality of domestically produced materials is relatively poor, the output is low, and the supply is insufficient. It cannot completely replace imported materials to meet the needs of domestic recycling. And the domestic recycling system is still not perfect, and various short boards still exist. Industry insiders expect that after the most stringent environmental protection year in 2017, it is difficult to make a major breakthrough in the import of waste plastics in 2018.

It is true that although China's recycled plastics industry has achieved certain development breakthroughs in recent years, it still faces many challenges in the road of environmental protection. As part of the recycling industry, the national level naturally supports and advocates, but environmentally friendly production and no harm to the environment are the primary prerequisites. In view of this, enterprises engaged in the recycling industry, whether in domestic production or imported recycled plastics, need to operate in accordance with the regulations, while improving various ring guarantees, accelerate the innovation and upgrading of technology and equipment, and make the production of recycled plastics scale. Standardized transformation, thus promoting the establishment and improvement of the new industry order, so that the recycled plastics industry truly achieve green recycling and sustainable development.