Zhejiang's "blue cycle" solves three major problems in marine plastic waste management
Recently, when customer Ms. Liu was shopping on Taobao Mall, a bathing product under the Swing Yongyue brand attracted her attention. The outer packaging of the product said "Earth Environmental Protection Plan. The internal packaging material of this product contains marine recycled plastics." Words. After careful questioning with customer service, she learned that the bottles of toiletries were "transformed" from recycled waste fishing nets, rather than directly from polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is made of petroleum. "Buying a bottle of shampoo can actually participate in marine protection." Ms. Liu immediately placed an order. These abandoned fishing nets were collected by fishermen and volunteers from the coast of Fenghua District, Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province.
In October last year, the "blue cycle" marine plastic waste management model from Zhejiang won the 2023 United Nations "Champions of the Earth Award", the highest honor in the field of environmental protection. In May this year, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and other four departments jointly issued the "Action Plan for Marine Waste Cleanup in Coastal Cities", proposing to "encourage coastal cities to learn from innovative models such as the 'blue cycle' and implement diversified and joint management to implement marine plastic waste management and resource recycling.". Recently, Zhejiang officially released another milestone document of the "Blue Cycle". According to the "Implementation Plan for Further Copying and Promoting the Experience of the" Blue Cycle "to Strengthen the Management of Marine Plastic Waste", Zhejiang will explore a diversified marine plastic waste management system according to local conditions, establish and improve a long-term mechanism for comprehensive management of marine plastic waste, by 2025, to further expand and improve the "blue cycle", form a collaborative governance pattern, and promote high-level protection of the marine ecological environment.
Solving the difficulty of decentralized collection
As a major maritime province, Zhejiang has a coastline of 6600 kilometers long and 4350 islands, ranking first in the country. How to solve the problem of collecting scattered marine plastic waste? Zhejiang has come up with a clever way to gather multi-dimensional entities and establish a full-coverage collection system.
Dachen Island, 52 kilometers away from Taizhou City, is a national-level fishing port and a famous tourist attraction. It was evening, and tourists were rushing to catch sea goods on the beach. Several fishermen took advantage of the fishing ban to seize the time to come to the coast after low tide. They put floating plastic bottles, foam plastic, etc. into recycling bags and sent them to the "Xiaolan Home" not far away. Kong Chen, the person in charge of the site, used his mobile phone to scan the smart bracelet they carried with him and confirmed that the garbage was collected within one kilometer of the coastline. After weighing, he recycled the garbage at a price of 2.5 yuan per catty. "The purchase price is more than double the market price, and it can increase income by more than 1000 yuan a month." said a fisherman.
Amid the roar of the compressor, the sorted plastic bottles are compressed and bundled into smaller "plastic bottle bricks", waiting for the personnel of Zhejiang Lanjing Technology Co., Ltd. to come and purchase them for the next stage of recycling. Kong Chen introduced that the machines are all uniformly equipped by the company. After preliminary compression and crushing, the volume of garbage can be reduced by about 80%, and the transportation cost can be reduced by 80%.
Today, there are 17 sorting and temporary storage points like this in Taizhou. More than 6000 people in coastal towns and villages and more than 10,000 sea ships have actively participated in the collection of marine plastic waste.
There are nearly 1000 high-horsepower fishing boats in Chunhu Street, Fenghua, Ningbo. Each fishing boat produces an average of 5 tons of abandoned fishing gear every year. In Qifeng Village, a building built of containers "Xihai Environmental Protection Cabin" is very conspicuous. "After registering the 'Xihi Recycling' Mini programs on your mobile phone, you can carry out fishing net delivery. After sensing it here, it will open. After throwing it in and closing it for weighing, the carbon points will be displayed on the Mini programs. Points can be exchanged for goods, or cash can be withdrawn to Alipay." Liu Yalan, a staff member of the "Ocean Partner" project of Ningbo Jianfeng New Materials Co., Ltd., is patiently guiding the "fishing bosses" to deliver the dilapidated fishing gear brought back from the sea.
Here is the first "Ocean Partner" environmental cabin project in Ningbo City. Since it was put into use, the project has recycled more than 1000 tons of marine waste plastics, forming a beautiful ecological landscape in Fenghua Chun Lake.
"In accordance with the model of 'government-led, enterprise entities, industry collaboration, and public linkage', our province has built marine plastic waste collection points in coastal counties (cities, districts) to achieve full 'blue cycle' in coastal counties (cities, districts) across the province. Coverage." Chen Yuan, director of the Oceanic Division of the Department of Ecology and Environment of Zhejiang Province, said that the province will also establish a marine plastic waste service supervision system and governance system, strengthen service guarantees in key links such as collection, storage, transportation, and disposal, and achieve standardized and stable operation of the "blue cycle".
What is gratifying is that the governance landscape of the "blue cycle" continues to expand. In June this year, the Zhejiang Province Department of Ecology and Environment jointly signed the "Yangtze River Delta" Blue Cycle "Marine Plastic Waste Management Cooperation Memorandum with the Shanghai and Jiangsu Ecological Environment Departments at the fourth working meeting of the Yangtze River Delta Regional Ecological and Environmental Protection Collaboration Group." Memorandum of Cooperation on Management of Marine Plastic Waste, laying a solid foundation for establishing a cross-regional cooperation mechanism and a long-term mechanism for marine garbage cleanup.
Solve the difficulty of high-value utilization
At present, Zhejiang is continuously deepening the width and breadth of the "blue cycle" governance model, promoting the expansion from a single plastic bottle to the recycling and utilization of all categories of marine plastics such as fishing nets and fishing gear, exploring the province's plastic recycling enterprises, and forming collection-transfer-disposal closed loop in the province. Although many manufacturing companies actively fulfill their social responsibilities to protect the marine ecological environment, they are willing to purchase some higher-priced recycled marine plastic particles to replace virgin plastic particles. Compared with traditional land-based recycled plastics, there is also more room for price appreciation from marine plastics as raw materials. But the problem is, how to prove that these materials do come from marine plastic waste?
In this regard, Zhejiang regards the improvement and construction of the traceability certification system for marine plastic waste as a key link in the "blue cycle", and has built a process system of "market-oriented waste collection-high-value resource utilization-international certification value-added" for marine plastic waste., open up the high-value utilization industrial chain.
On the workshop line of Taizhou Qiju Renewable Resources Co., Ltd., the "Blue Marine Plastic Factory", various "army" of marine plastic waste such as fishing nets, crab nets, and boat ropes "starts" from the feeding port of the granulating equipment. After several processes such as sorting, crushing, cleaning, melting, wire drawing, and granulating, they become crystal clear and uniform recycled plastic particles, which are "spat" from the discharge port into white ton bags.
On the other side of the workshop, these recycled plastic particles are being prepared. After being purchased by downstream manufacturers, they will once again enter people's daily lives. Each bag is attached with an OBP traceability tracking QR code. With a scan with your mobile phone, you can see that the "predecessor" of the plastic particles is PA6 waste crab net, the collection port is Jinqing Port, and the collection location is Jinqing Town. At No. 687 Haiyan, Haifeng Village, Jinqing Town, even the collection method, date, quantity, etc. are clear. In this way, consumers can understand the source and production process of marine plastic waste used in this product.
Sunshade net, pipe, impeller... In the exhibition hall of Taizhou Qiju Renewable Resources Co., Ltd., the reporter saw the products of these recycled plastic particles after deep processing.
"The OBP marine certification standard is jointly released by the 'Zero' Plastic Ocean Organization and Shiyou Certification. It is widely used in more than 20 countries including Europe, America, Oceania, and Asia. We are also the first in Taizhou City to pass the OBP International Collection and Processing Certification. enterprise. After extrusion and injection molding, these plastic particles can be developed and used in various products such as electrical appliances, automobiles, packaging, and daily chemical products." He Qiqi, general manager of the company, introduced.
The "Marine Plastic Blue Factory" project has now built 5 marine plastic recycling and granulating equipment and is equipped with standardized environmental protection equipment. The annual recycling capacity can reach 20,000 tons. For every 10,000 tons of recycled plastic particles produced, it is equivalent to saving society. 60,000 tons of crude oil and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 25,000 tons.
It is understood that Zhejiang will issue the "Code for Traceability Management of Marine Plastic Waste Recovery", striving to take the lead in establishing a marine plastic waste traceability certification system in the country, promote the standardization of traceability management of marine plastic waste, and build a digital management and high-value utilization standard system for marine plastic waste.
Solve the difficulty of multiple co-governance
Zhejiang is encouraging more social entities to participate in the "blue cycle" system, exploring and creating more high-value transformation governance models, cultivating new green growth points with diverse characteristics, and forming a good situation of diversified co-governance.
For example, when the "blue cycle" meets "coffee + public welfare", what kind of wonderful reaction will it have?
"An environmentally themed cafe, blue sea paired with small fishing boats, which makes it look very good at just taking a photo.""Little Kenting by the seaside, let's pick seaweed and drink coffee."... Today, Fenghua's "Ocean Partner" environmental cabin is not only a simple collection point for marine plastic waste, but also a popular "Internet celebrity check-in place" on platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin.
Every weekend, the coastline of Chunhu Street becomes a sea of tents. After taking her family on a tour, tourist Ms. Wang came to the "Xi Hi Coffee" on the second floor of the eco-friendly cabin and used the carbon points she had recently picked up plastic bottles on the beach to buy lattes and French fries for herself and her children.
"'Xihi Coffee 'and' Crispy Shengsheng (French fries)'are both our ecological partners. After customers consume it, we will donate corresponding public welfare funds for public welfare undertakings such as marine protection and student aid. We have donated a total of 10,000 yuan public welfare funds." Liu Yalan introduced.
On the shelves next to the coffee bar, the reporter saw that these environmentally friendly products recycled from marine plastic waste all carried an "identity tag" marked with carbon emission reduction data. For example, a smart electric toothbrush made from fishing baskets reduces carbon emissions by 78g, water consumption by 624g, and waste pollutants by 24g; a baseball cap made from fishing nets reduces carbon emissions by 985 g, water consumption by 169.9 g, and waste pollutants by 156g; a mouse made from recycling floating balls reduces carbon emissions by 450 g, water consumption by 58 g, and waste pollutants by 60 g...
"We have created a new multi-scenario experience of 'waste recycling + public welfare and environmental protection education + sustainability + infinite recycling ecology + coffee + business', combining recycling technology innovation, business model innovation and ecological public welfare innovation to realize the collection, transportation, and classification of marine pollutants. A sustainable long-term ecological value chain for recycling, deep processing and high-value applications." Liu Yalan said.
Today, the brand effect of "blue cycle" is becoming increasingly prominent, forming a governance pattern of regional coordination, expansion and quality improvement, and social synergy, achieving all-round integrated development of marine environmental governance, resource recycling, and common prosperity.
In the next step, Zhejiang will implement the concept of common prosperity in marine plastic waste management and encourage ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) leading enterprises in coastal areas to provide more choices for the construction of marine plastic waste collection points, marine plastic waste disposal and recycling, etc. and support, optimize the "blue cycle" model for public application scenarios, explore the integrated development model of marine plastic waste management and recycled products, and drive the whole society to actively participate in and promote marine environmental protection actions. At the same time, we actively participate in international exchanges and cooperation in the fields of marine plastic pollution control, resource recycling, industrial innovation and development, continue to open the "Zhejiang window" for the construction of a beautiful China, contribute Chinese solutions to the world's ocean governance, and jointly protect the blue homeland.
