After home appliances are "trade-in", where have the old ones gone?
A few days ago, the Ministry of Commerce and other four departments issued a notice to provide subsidies to consumers for purchasing eight types of home appliances, with a maximum subsidy of 2000 yuan per item. This is another increase in support for trade-in the home appliance field since the consumer goods trade-in campaign was launched in March this year. Data shows that in July, sales of TVs, washing machines, and refrigerators on major e-commerce platforms increased by 92.9%, 82.8% and 65.9%. The old-for-new policy has achieved remarkable results.
After home appliances are "trade-in", new home appliances come. Where have all the old home appliances that have been replaced gone?
How are old home appliances recycled, disassembled and utilized?
Recently, in a residential area in Linyi, Shandong Province, citizen Feng Yuzhu purchased a four-door refrigerator by exchanging old ones with new ones. Mall staff Master Tu sent him new ones and collected the old ones for free. This eliminated old refrigerator followed Master Tu to an old machine storage warehouse, together with other used home appliances, waiting to be verified.
Qi Jifang, director of the warehousing department of a home appliance logistics center in Linyi: After each old machine arrives at our warehouse, we will strictly follow the old machine confirmation form, verify the customer's personal information, the model purchased and the type of old machine exchanged for, and register, classify and place. When leaving the warehouse, we also confirm and verify with the receiving unit and sign it to ensure that each old machine can reach the dismantling center in time.
After a series of checks, the old refrigerator was sent to a local digital dismantling plant.
The staff first tested it, confirmed the information, then weighed it and pasted a bar code on it, and it was sent to the sorting line for warehousing.
Next, it will face a dismantling "operation". Remove parts, extract freon, remove compressor and punch holes to drain oil.
The remaining refrigerator boxes are sent to a crusher for secondary crushing, and metals and materials such as copper, aluminum, iron, plastic, and foam are sorted out.
In this way, the dismantling process of a refrigerator was completely completed.
This factory has a total of 8 waste home appliance dismantling lines, which can formally dismantle waste refrigerators, televisions, air conditioners, washing machines, and computers. It has an annual qualification capacity of 4.8 million used home appliances. It not only effectively prevents waste home appliances from flowing into the market again after being renovated, causing safety hazards, but also allows old home appliances to be turned into treasure and effectively reused.
Zhou Yumin, general manager of a resource recycling company in Shandong: Scrap steel mainly flows to steel mills, scrap copper and scrap aluminum mainly flows to copper and aluminum smelting enterprises, and waste plastic mainly flows to waste plastic recycling processing plants. After processing, these waste resources can be used in many fields such as steel manufacturing, copper and aluminum smelting, home appliances and automobile production, truly realizing the resource, environmental protection, and harmless green recycling of waste home appliances.
Scrap metal disassembled from old home appliances
How to turn waste into treasure?
An old home appliance that is recycled from our home will be sorted out after being disassembled and processed by a professional factory. The most important materials are various scrap metal objects, which will be sold to downstream companies. So, how will the scrap metal disassembled from old home appliances be reused?
Step 1: Sampling, testing and classification, and then smelting into the furnace
In an aluminum processing plant in the West Coast New District of Qingdao, a transport truck carrying disassembled aluminum for home appliances is carrying out loading and unloading operations in the workshop. Staff samples, tests and sorts the waste aluminum, and mixes the waste with qualified compositions into the furnace. Melting.
Step 2: After purification, it is processed into aluminum alloy products that meet the standards
After the aluminum waste is purified, it is processed and produced into aluminum alloy products with standard quality. The utilization rate of waste aluminum in this factory can reach more than 95%, which is equivalent to 1 kilogram of waste aluminum that can be made into more than 0.95 kilograms of aluminum alloy products. These recycled aluminum alloy flat ingots will be sold by companies to auto parts manufacturers for intensive processing and produced into condenser metal pipe materials for automobiles. Waste aluminum, which was originally useless, has been reborn here.
During the interview, the reporter learned that there are currently two raw materials for the production of aluminum parts for automobiles. One is pure aluminum obtained from alumina extracted from bauxite and then electrolyzed, commonly known as electrolytic aluminum. The other is aluminum produced by dismantling scrapped home appliances and rerefining it, which is what we call recycled aluminum.
According to estimates, the production of 1 ton of electrolytic aluminum requires 13500 kilowatt-hours of electricity, and the carbon dioxide emissions are about 12 tons; while the production of 1 ton of recycled aluminum requires only 400 to 700 kilowatt-hours of electricity, and the carbon dioxide emissions are about 0.23 tons. Therefore, using waste aluminum as the main raw material to make aluminum alloy automobile parts can achieve energy conservation, carbon reduction, and green recycling.
Why are formal dismantling companies "not enough to eat"?
Promoting the recycling and processing of used household appliances is an important way to improve resource utilization efficiency, promote the development of green and low-carbon cycles, and reduce environmental pollution. At present, my country has established a corresponding recycling and processing system, but the proportion of used household appliances recycled through normal channels to achieve environmentally friendly dismantling and recycling only accounts for about 20%.
According to experts, at the current ratio, many formal dismantling companies are experiencing "insufficient food" in production.
Tian Lei, associate researcher at the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission: Formal dismantling enterprises are "not enough to eat". The reason is that there are blockages and difficulties in many links in the home appliance recycling chain.
In the recycling channel, enterprises qualified for dismantling have difficulty effectively extending and establishing corresponding recycling networks due to factors such as large investment, high expenditure, and high cost.
In terms of utilization, on the one hand, my country has a second-hand home appliance market with large demand; on the other hand, the problem of illegal dismantling by individuals is more prominent.
From a deep-seated perspective, recycling involves many links, and the business model still needs to be innovated. At present, from the waste household appliances in the hands of residents to the dismantling factory, it probably needs to go through four to five links, including the dismantling of waste household appliances at the front end, the collection and transportation at the middle end, to the recycling company's centralized sales and processing, and then to the recycling at the end, which takes a long time, is costly, and has poor results.
How to improve used household appliances
Renewable resource recycling system?
The old-for-new policy has achieved remarkable results this year, which also shows from another perspective that the number of used household appliances that have been eliminated has also seen growth in terms of both the quantity and the market share of dismantling. How to improve the recycling system for renewable resources such as used household appliances? Faced with the blockages and difficulties in the recycling of home appliances, how do we need to improve it next?
Experts pointed out that the key to promoting the recycling of used household appliances is to improve the recycling system for renewable resources such as used household appliances. At present, nine departments including the Ministry of Commerce have issued relevant notices, proposing to improve the recycling network, smooth recycling channels for public institutions, and especially improve the construction of community recycling outlets.
At the same time, circulation companies such as supermarket stores and e-commerce platforms should be encouraged to strengthen cooperation with production companies to promote the recycling of used home appliances and furniture. Promote professional and standardized recycling services into streets and communities, and gradually realize the direct door-to-door recycling of used home appliances and furniture by formal enterprises.
Tian Lei, associate researcher at the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission: It is necessary to explore innovative recycling models, develop Internet + recycling, and vehicle-replacing warehouses models, and strive to allow people to use used household appliances without leaving home with a finger or a phone call. Properly dispose of them. At the same time, we must also step up the formulation of standards and specifications, promote the standardized disposal of used household appliances and furniture and the circulation of second-hand goods, and improve preferential tax and financial policies for the recycling industry.
