/PRCWT/Guangzhou, 24 November 2023 - What is reuse?
"The reuse mode, as opposed to the one-time consumption mode, refers to the use mode in which the item is used repeatedly for the same purpose and reaches a certain number of times without changing the original performance and state."
On November 22, 2023, it was organized by Guangdong Circular Economy and Comprehensive Utilization of Resources Association and environmental protection Agency to get rid of plastic restraints, co-organized by Yunnan Cross-border E-commerce Association, Guangdong Express Packaging Industry Green Development Alliance and Hangzhou E-commerce Association. Supported by ACEF, Hainan BRUGH Environmental Technology Co., LTD. (Haikou Solid Waste Treatment and Soil Remediation Engineering Technology Research Center), Alxa SEE Free Trade Island Project Center, and Tianjin Xiqing District Development Center, the 2023 5th Plastic Reduction Forum and Reusable Green Economy Development Conference was successfully held. This year's plastic reduction forum was broadcast live on NetEase Yicheng Live, video number and B station platforms, with a cumulative viewing volume of more than 1.08 million people.
According to the moderator of the forum, Luo Dan, head of the Chengdu Root and Bud Environmental Exchange Center, "The forum aims to provide a platform for effectively promoting the solution to the problem of plastic pollution to see the power of multiple parties, promote multi-party dialogue and build a platform for display, exchange and mutual learning."
Reuse model: Reducing plastic pollution, an exciting solution
Plastic pollution control has become an important challenge facing our society today. This global problem not only affects our environment, but also poses a threat to human health. Fu Zhijian, chief engineer of the Guangdong Circular Economy and Comprehensive Utilization of Resources Association, stressed in his opening speech that "it is better to empty than to plug, and we need to have better alternatives than single-use plastics."
Professor Wen Zongguo of Tsinghua University, a well-known expert in the field of environmental science and engineering, summarized and refined the policy guidance of the whole chain of governance, clear policy objectives, systematic solutions, and detailed implementation of responsibilities on the basis of combing the domestic and international situation of coping with plastic challenges and the development context of China's plastic pollution control policies. Combined with academic research, three new challenges were summarized, namely, insufficient metabolic flow data of waste plastics, scientific misunderstanding of plastic pollution control path, and lack of consideration of application scenarios and comprehensive effects of plastic pollution control.
As the conference warm-up film introduced, "reuse" is not unfamiliar to many people, "reuse mode, as opposed to one-time consumption mode, refers to the item in the same purpose without changing the original performance, state of the case (usually not through recycling or major maintenance), repeatedly used to achieve a certain number of use mode." According to this definition, many enterprises in our country have tried circular express boxes, and many business models at home and abroad have been relatively large-scale circular takeout lunch box systems, adhering to the concept of "reuse".
Why do we need to reuse? In response to the potential environmental benefits of reuse models, Ellen MacArthur foundation's 柊 Nan Jia cited data from the PEW Foundation's 2022 report that "reuse models, if used properly, could reduce plastic pollution entering the ocean by at least 20 percent by 2040."
As an important part of the reusable system system, the deposit system has been implemented in representative countries and regions such as Europe. Talking about the challenges and directions of the implementation of the deposit system in China, Chang Tao, general manager of Beijing Yingchuang Renewable Resources Recycling Co., Ltd. admitted that the current challenges mainly lie in: on the one hand, the extended producer responsibility system has not been deeply implemented; On the other hand, the government pays more attention to the recycling rate, and does not pay attention to the efficiency of reuse and peer utilization of resources.
E-commerce logistics circular packaging: urgent unified standards, data sharing, policy support, consumer awareness is the key
Liao Wentian, deputy director of the Green Development Alliance of the express packaging industry in Guangdong Province, introduced that among the top 10 cities in China's urban express business revenue in Guangdong Province in 2022, 5 cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen made the list, and the express province deserved the name. In the future, the Alliance will actively cooperate with the implementation of green transformation of express packaging in accordance with the spirit of the "Implementation Plan for Promoting the high-quality development of the postal express Industry in Guangdong Province" and other documents, promote the application of recyclable express packaging, reduce the secondary packaging of e-commerce express shipments, and improve the standardization of express packaging products.
Chen Aijia, director of the project to get rid of plastic packaging, shared the latest completed "Research Report on the scale application of recyclable express packaging", which mainly discusses the environment, economic benefits and policy advantages of recyclable express packaging, and provides detailed business cases at home and abroad, and finally focuses on analyzing the challenges of China's recyclable express packaging. And put forward the following three suggestions for the scale of circular express packaging: First, the implementation of the national and local government's incentive support policy for circular express packaging; Second, government departments should take the lead in coordinating the construction of shared recycling systems; Third, promote communication and co-construction among social stakeholders to enhance consumer awareness and participation.
Since the release of the Notice on Further Strengthening the management of excessive Packaging of Commodities by The General Office of the State Council in 2022, major domestic express logistics companies have also actively explored relevant packaging reduction practices, but there are still many environmental challenges in e-commerce logistics packaging.
At the industry round table represented by enterprises and foundations, guests expressed their opinions. Guo Run, senior packaging expert of Jingdong Logistics, pointed out that "the packaging problem is not an independent enterprise can solve, the need for close cooperation between the upstream and downstream of the supply chain, from the source to change the traditional packaging design concept."
Similar to the point of view of Jingdong Logistics, "there is no unified authoritative digital management platform is also one of the pain points of the cycle box, the cycle box data of major logistics companies are separated, and it is impossible to do comprehensive management of the cycle data, resulting in the cost cannot be compressed", Xiao Gaofei, vice president of Gray Environmental Protection Technology (Shanghai) Co., LTD., pointed out that "At present, the proportion of investment in China's recycling packaging machine operation is only about 8%, of which enterprise production accounts for most of the C-end market and the national green layout has not yet begun."
Liu Yaojun, general manager of product supply of Infiniband (China) Co., LTD., added that after deduction and research demonstration, the use of recycling boxes is very useful for chain brands to optimize costs and enhance employees' environmental awareness.
Participants generally believe that the development of circular express box is the trend of The Times, in order to better promote the development of the industry, relevant enterprises generally look forward to the top-level design support at the policy level, and look forward to supporting the integrated circular box system in the future.
Consumer side: Over 60% are willing to pay for the green premium
From industry conversations, it can be concluded that consumer attitudes become a key factor affecting the promotion of reuse models. In response to this question, Free from Plastic Shackles United MSC Consulting conducted a survey, collecting 1,284 questionnaires from the environmental community and the general public across the country.
The survey data found that:
● More than 50% of consumers can identify reuse scenarios;
● 82.41% of consumers think that the reuse model is to save money;
● Popular reusable products such as circular delivery boxes and replacement packages have a public penetration rate of more than 50%;
● More than 60% of consumers are willing to accept the green premium;
According to Li Yujun, senior consultant of MSC Consulting, the spokesperson of the report, "The public cognition foundation shows a positive attitude, the public shows a high acceptance of specific scenarios and applications, and there is obvious market space and profit opportunities." On the whole, the public is ready and marketing can take a big step forward."
The establishment of a re-use model system requires the support of consumers, but also requires all parties in society to work together to carry out relevant publicity and education, and "experience first" can effectively break past cognition and enhance public acceptance.
In a roundtable discussion on consumer advocacy at the forum, Zou Weiwei, founder of Hexiyouwu, Chen Yanling, reporter of China Environment News, Li Yuyun, senior consultant of MSC Consulting, and Su Yge, an environmental blogger, spoke from the perspectives of enterprises, media, third-party organizations and consumers. The paper gives some views on the influence of consumers on enterprises, the difficulties in the promotion of reuse mode, and the strategies of consumer advocacy. Participants generally agreed that consumer advocacy should start with small environmental issues; Enterprises should be incentivized to invest in and develop reuse models through green competition.
Takeaway reuse packaging: a beautiful picture of reuse patterns
In 2021, the scale of China's food delivery market has reached the trillion level. A conservative estimate is that by 2025, the size of the economy will exceed 1.5 trillion.
As one of the important application scenarios with the potential to establish reuse patterns, how to reduce disposable plastic waste in the field of takeout has become an important topic.
In the second half of the forum, Ding Yi, director of the project to get rid of plastic restraints, built such an ideal picture for consumers in the sharing of the "Food and beverage takeout reusable packaging Case Study Report" : readily available to buy coffee drinks with "circular cups" and convenient return, ordering takeout can choose both sealing and insulation, support fixed point return, unified cleaning of the "reusable lunch box".
If a similar scenario "dreams come true", consumers can get carbon reduction points or price concessions, the environmental performance of catering enterprises ESG reports can be more bright, reusable systems become a new economic growth point for the economy and society, and achieve a win-win situation for the environment, consumers, enterprises and government.
How to make this beautiful picture come true as soon as possible? "Under the development opportunities brought by policy drive, open up key nodes such as third-party payment platforms, professional tableware cleaning service providers, and takeout platforms, rely on digital tools to enhance information transparency and management effectiveness, and promote reusable models combined with ESG localization development" Ding Yi looks forward from these perspectives.
Regarding the recycling and hygiene of reusable tableware that consumers are most concerned about, foodpanda Hong Kong's Senior Manager of Corporate Sustainability, Kathy Hui, shared insights and practical solutions from the perspective of machine hygiene, machine maintenance, and lunch box cleaning from the one-year experience of the "Takeaway Reuse Tableware Program".
Guests expressed their views at an industry roundtable composed of relevant business model companies and third-party organizations. Food industry digital consulting consultant Wen Yuchen focused on human costs, marketing costs, market education costs and other perspectives to share the case.
Li Junmian, general manager of Guangdong Bowl Network Technology Co., LTD., combined with a bowl practice case, shared the priority scenario for circular lunch boxes, and she proposed that according to the test, the return rate will be significantly improved in closed scenes such as large meetings and schools.
In view of the circular cup practice of domestic enterprises, Zhou Xiaochi, founder of Ape Coffee, discussed the feasibility of creating coffee space, establishing membership system and combining with circular cup from the perspective of circular cost.
"When consumers understand the use and significance of the circular cup, 84.8% of the respondents said they would like to use the circular cup, which reflects the high acceptance of innovative environmental measures by consumers," Xu Minghan, innovation project director of Impact Hub Shanghai, added after sharing the circular cup experiment case.
This year's plastic reduction forum was broadcast live on NetEase Yicheng Live, video number and B station platforms, with a cumulative viewing volume of more than 1.08 million people, which shows that the public's attention to related issues is getting higher and higher. For more information, please pay attention to the public number "get rid of plastic restraints". There is a long way to go before promoting the reuse model and controlling the problem of single-use plastic pollution, and it is still necessary for all parties to cooperate and turn into a green joint force of all parties in society.
