Development of recycled plastics industry

The current domestic recycled plastic industry has a huge scale, a complete industrial chain, fine division of labor, and diverse product applications and operation modes. There are over 10000 related enterprises in the industry, with recycling outlets spread across the country. A recycling market and processing hub for recycled plastics, represented by Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu and other places, has been formed. The development trend of recycling and processing clusters and market trading intensification is becoming increasingly significant. According to data from the Recycled Plastics Branch of the China Association for Recycling Materials, from 2017 to 2019, the amount of recycled plastic waste in China continued to steadily increase, from 17 million tons to 19 million tons. In 2020, due to the impact of the epidemic, there was a significant decline in domestic plastic waste recycling, with a recycling volume of about 16 million tons. In 2021, the amount of plastic waste recycled in China increased to 19 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 19% compared to 2020. According to the "Report on the Development of China's Recycled Plastic Industry (2022)", the total amount of waste plastic recycling in China reached 18 million tons in 2022, a year-on-year decrease of 5.3%.
Under the global "dual carbon" target environment, the domestic attention to the plastic recycling industry is gradually increasing, and the amount of plastic recycling is expected to further increase, which will promote the development of the recycled plastic industry. It is expected that the amount of plastic waste recycled in China will reach 24 million tons in 2023 and climb to 27.5 million tons by 2025.
The main types of recycled plastics include PET, PE, PP, PVC, ABS, etc., among which the first three types of waste plastics are the main recycled varieties. According to the statistics of the Recycled Plastics Branch of the China Association for Material Recycling, in 2021, China's waste PET recycling volume was 5.5 million tons, waste PE recycling volume was 4 million tons, and waste PP recycling volume was 3.8 million tons, accounting for 70% of the total waste plastic recycling volume in 2021. From the practice of plastic waste recycling in China, engineering plastics and bottle plastics are more likely to achieve resource recycling and utilization. In 2021, the recycling of discarded PET bottles and other PET plastics accounted for nearly 30% of the total recycling volume. However, packaging plastics, which account for about 45% of plastic production, especially film bag plastics, currently do not have the technical conditions for physical recycling.
The methods for recycling waste plastics include thermal energy recovery, chemical reduction, physical recovery, and hydrogenation precipitation. Among them, physical and chemical recycling can achieve the recycling of "plastic raw materials plastic products consumption recycled plastics". Physical recycling technology is a widely adopted method in the current plastic recycling industry. However, due to people's lack of environmental awareness and inability to effectively classify and dispose of waste, the recycling and sorting process is difficult, costly, and has low returns.Recycled plastic, as a new type of plastic material, has the characteristics of environmental friendliness, strong energy saving and emission reduction capabilities. Consumers' demand for recycled plastic products is increasing day by day. Recycled plastic products have been widely used in packaging, construction, household goods, transportation, electronics and electrical fields, for the production of plastic cables, network transmission devices, fiber optic cables, hard disk protective enclosures, computer chip packaging, USB drives, and various mobile phone accessories. For example, Microsoft released a marine eco-friendly mouse in 2021, with 20% of its casing made of marine recycled plastic, and the product's packaging being 100% recyclable. Volkswagen ID Buzz's interior extensively uses alternative materials made from recycled plastic, while the seat fabric is the first to use Seaqual ®Yarn Recycled polyester yarn, made from 10% marine waste and 90% recycled polyester yarn. Recently, KACO teamed up with Nongfu Spring and material supplier Covestro to convert post consumer waste plastic - Nongfu Spring 19L water buckets - into approximately 156 KEYBO neutral pens.