Restricting plastic, it is better to promote degradable plastics

At present, the daily order volume of the US group is only 12 million copies. It consumes at least 1 plastic bag and 1 plastic lunch box per order, and consumes at least 24 million plastic products per day. Express delivery is also a major consumer of plastic products. According to the statistics of the State Post Bureau, China’s express delivery business reached 31.28 billion pieces last year. By 2020, the total amount of express delivery nationwide will reach 50 billion pieces, including 20 billion plastic bags and 7 billion bubble bags.

These plastic lunch boxes, plastic bags and bubble bags used in take-out and express delivery are basically non-degradable plastic products, which not only make the plastic limit a piece of paper, but also bring huge burden and damage to the environment. The plastic limit order only prohibits the production, sale and use of ultra-thin plastic shopping bags, and requires all supermarkets, shopping malls, bazaars and other retail places to implement the use of plastic shopping bags, and no plastic shopping bags are provided free of charge. Therefore, the relevant departments can not ask the take-away and express delivery companies to reduce the amount of plastic products by limiting plastic orders. A large number of take-away lunch boxes, etc., as long as consumers are willing to pay for the purchase, there is no limit to the plastic order. For consumers, take-away, online shopping consumption patterns and habits have been formed, reducing the use of plastic products is not a day's work. Possible ways to reduce the growing plastic waste in the take-away and express delivery industries may only start from the source and put the production and use of degradable plastic products on the agenda.

In comparison, the price of degradable plastic products is relatively high, and the cost is about 2-3 times that of ordinary plastic products, which will increase the operating cost of the enterprise. But these costs are far from being comparable to the environmental costs of processing plastic waste. At a time when the capacity of landfills is becoming more and more urgent, and the burning of plastic products will produce dioxin, we can't do anything about the harmless treatment of plastic waste. Moreover, the ultimate buyer of this cost is the consumer. For businesses, this is also a social responsibility that they should and must undertake.

It is undeniable that the degradable plastic products on the market are currently inferior in performance, and are not as heat-resistant as ordinary plastic products, and the toughness is not enough. But these problems are not unsolved. At present, photodegradable plastics, biodegradable plastics, starch-based plastics, water-degradable plastics and other degradable plastic products have been developed and produced by enterprises. What the relevant departments have to do is to evaluate the growth of plastics use and plastic waste in the past 10 years, and to establish national standards for the use of plastic products in the take-out and express delivery industries, and to enforce degradable plastic products. At the same time, we will increase the intensity of law enforcement supervision, penalize companies that violate the regulations for the production, sale, use of plastic products such as ultra-thin plastic shopping bags, and Shangchao, and increase their enthusiasm for the production, sale and use of biodegradable plastics.