During the two sessions of the National People's Congress this year, Ma Yongsheng, chairman of the Sinopec Group and secretary of the Party Group, suggested that we should coordinate the utilization of waste plastics as resources, accelerate the green transformation and development of the refining and chemical industry, accelerate the pace of plastic cycle development, and form an effective industrialization and large-scale economic utilization method.
Data show that at present, China produces more than 60 million tons of waste plastics every year, and the recycling rate of waste plastics is about 30%, which is in the forefront of the world. However, due to the large proportion of landfill and incineration, the overall recovery rate still has a large room for improvement. Chemical recycling of waste plastics is currently recognized globally as a low-carbon, clean and the only recycling method that can achieve sustainable development, and it is also an effective path to further improve the recycling of waste plastics. In the view of many industry insiders, plastic circular economy tuyere has arrived.
Recovery rate to be improved
As a large country of plastic production and use, China is facing huge pressure of plastic pollution. The State Council and relevant ministries have introduced a number of policies for plastic pollution control.
In 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment issued the Notice on Issuing the "14th Five-Year Plan" Action Plan on Plastic Pollution Control, requiring accelerating the standardized recycling and utilization of plastic waste, focusing on improving the level of safe disposal of plastic waste ends, vigorously carrying out special cleaning and renovation of plastic waste, and significantly reducing the amount of plastic waste landfill and environmental leakage. We have made notable progress in the control of white pollution.
It is understood that the current waste plastic treatment methods mainly include recycling, incineration and landfill. Among them, recycling is mainly a physical way, that is, it does not destroy the polymer structure of the plastic, and only the waste plastic is directly pelletized after cleaning and crushing. Data from the China Materials Recycling Association show that in 2021, 62 million tons of waste plastics will be produced in China, of which 15.4 million tons will be buried, accounting for 24.84%; The incineration volume was 27.6 million tons, accounting for 44.52%; The amount of recycling was 19 million tons, an increase of 3 million tons, or 19%, from 16 million tons in 2020, and the overall recycling rate of waste plastics was 30.64%.
"China began the waste plastic recycling work in the 1980s, after nearly 40 years of efforts, we have established a strong industrial base, accumulated rich industrial experience, and created a recycling network covering a wide and large scale waste plastic recycling system; It has established the world's most complete waste plastic recycling and recycling industry chain." Wang Yonggang, secretary-general of the recycled Plastics branch of the China Materials Recycling Association, told China Energy News.
However, Wang Yonggang further explained: "Although the recycling rate of waste plastics in China is among the highest in the world, the proportion of landfill and incineration is still very large, and the recycling industry needs to play a role in improving the domestic recycling system to increase the recycling rate as much as possible."
Zhang Songchen, president of the China Petrochemical Research Institute of Circular Economy, wrote: "The future benefit from policy factors, oil price levels, consumer preferences for environmental protection, technology maturity and other multiple factors, is expected to 2030, the global recycling rate of waste plastics is expected to reach 50%."
Chemical recovery method
The so-called chemical recycling refers to the conversion of polymer carbon chains in plastics into small molecules by chemical methods, and then re-used as chemical raw materials to produce new plastics, so as to achieve a closed-loop process of materials. In recent years, international chemical giants have accelerated their layout in the field of plastic recycling, and more than 60 companies around the world are researching chemical recycling solutions for waste plastics.
"The traditional waste plastic treatment not only brings a lot of land occupation and pollution, but also produces a lot of carbon dioxide." As an emerging technology that has attracted much attention in recent years, the chemical recycling of waste plastics can not only reduce the carbon emissions of waste plastics treatment and the carbon footprint of new plastics production, but also greatly reduce China's dependence on crude oil." Sinopec Petrochemical Science Research Institute Co., Ltd. senior engineer Li Mingfeng said.
According to the research results of Sinopec Petrochemical Research Institute Co., LTD., waste plastic oil replaces crude oil in fuel refinery processing, and its carbon emissions during processing are reduced by 58.9%; When the waste plastic oil is maximized to produce polyolefin, the carbon footprint of polyethylene and polypropylene products (carbon dioxide emissions per unit of polyolefin) is 1.48 tons and 1.17 tons, respectively, which is 26.4% and 24.0% lower than that of crude oil based polyolefin. Whether it is the production of oil products using waste plastics as raw materials, or the chemical cycle of waste plastics to produce polyolefin, carbon emissions and product carbon footprint will be greatly reduced, and the emission reduction effect is obvious.
"Physical recycling of waste plastics generally degrades the use of materials. Some waste plastics may be more suitable for chemical recycling, which can depolymerize waste plastics and repolymerize them into plastic raw materials. At present, China's dependence on crude oil is high, the shortage of chemical raw materials, and the chemical recycling of waste plastics is theoretically unlimited recycling, which greatly improves the efficiency of resource utilization." Wang Yonggang said.
"Waste plastic resources have the potential to become an important source of raw materials for chemical production. It is estimated that plastic recycling as a polymer feedstock could contribute two-thirds of the profit growth in the petrochemical industry over the next 10 years, with chemical recycling accounting for 40% of this." China petrochemical circular economy research Institute president Zhang Songchen said.
Promote the improvement of the circular industrial chain
At present, the research on chemical recycling technology of waste plastics in China is basically synchronized with foreign countries, but there are still problems such as difficult access to raw materials, technical maturity needs to be improved, and the overall planning capacity of the whole industrial chain is insufficient, which urgently needs to form an industrialization demonstration, and establish a complete chemical cycle industrial chain and raw materials and product-related standard system.
Ma Yongsheng suggested: "First, we should strengthen the top-level design of the circular economy industry. At the national level, the overall development plan for the chemical cycle of waste plastics is formulated, a systematic policy framework is built, and the industrial chain is orderly promoted. Second, we will strengthen research in key and core technologies. At the national level, we will coordinate the joint research of production, education and research, promote collaborative innovation, and take the lead of leading petrochemical enterprises to increase the development of key technologies for recycling waste plastics and establish industrial demonstrations as soon as possible; Third, we will strengthen government guidance on the utilization of resources. Strengthen the reasonable allocation of low-value waste plastic resources under the guidance of the government, the planning and layout of recycling networks and the construction of cluster infrastructure, and improve the efficiency of resource utilization."
"Although the state has put plastic recycling into the emerging industry, because the industry has given the impression of 'small pollution' in the past, the project is difficult to land in the local area." The waste plastics industry promotes social metabolism, which is the same as the sewage treatment plant and waste treatment plant in the big cities, and is a service system that supports social development. First of all, starting from the industry positioning, the plastic recycling function should be completed in various places; Secondly, leading enterprises need to drive the overall development of the industry in a good direction; In addition, we need to optimize the industrial chain, let the upstream and downstream industrial chains collaborate, and do a good job of industry integration, integration and promotion." "Wang Yonggang said.
