China’s “plastic limit order” has been going through 11 years, and the ban on the import of “foreign garbage”, which includes a variety of solid wastes, including waste plastics, has been implemented for more than a year. Today, there are more and more people carrying eco-bags, and there is less and less over-packaging of goods. However, is white garbage really far away from people? Plastic recycling machine 

Recently, the reporter found that in people’s daily life, plastic garbage such as plastic cups, plastic straws, straw bags, plastic trays for drinks, cups and lids are still ubiquitous.

At the end of May, Beijing’s temperature approached 35 degrees. The heat makes people want something cooler – cold drinks. In the summer, it is the peak of the sales of beverage stores. The salespersons in the mall are eager to recommend the tasting, and the two sides of the street “buy a cup to give a cup” and “the second cup of half price” are screaming.

When it comes to plastic waste, most people think of plastic bags, bags and express parcels. Few people associate milk tea with white pollution. However, the reporter found that the beverage store produced a huge amount of plastic garbage every day.

On April 22nd, chain coffee giant Starbucks announced that it would stop supplying plastic straws in Chinese stores within this year, and has begun pilot projects in more than 1,000 stores in Shanghai and Shenzhen.

However, on May 23, the reporter visited two Chaoyang Joy City and one Starbucks store in Wanda Mall in Tongzhou District. It was found that plastic straws were still placed in front of the counters for customers who needed them.

Although Starbucks also offers a straight drink lid, most customers will still use the straw, and the keeper will pack the straw together when packing.

Milk tea is dependent on straws. Some milk teas are added to pearls, pulp, and nuts. In order to match different types of milk tea, some stores have even prepared a variety of straws. The reporter visited and found that in the 20 beverage shops in Chaoyang Joy City and 20 beverage shops in Wanda Plaza Beijing Tongzhou, all of them provided plastic straws, and did not restrict customers to use more. The straw bags are also mostly plastic packaging, and only a few chain beverage stores use paper packaging.

For some of the large-volume beverage stores, in addition to the dine-in, there are a large number of take-away orders, and the take-away is prone to spills. Among the above-mentioned businesses, most of them use fixed trays and sealing tapes. Although except for one beverage store, plastic trays are used, the merchants who provide trays select paper trays, but the amount of plastic tape consumed for sealing is still considerable.

A beverage store waiter told reporters: “The tape in the store is only used to make the cup packaging, but some purchases are not assured of the seal of the store. These people sometimes borrow tape from us and wrap the milk tea tightly.

The waiter signaled to reporters that the long line of milk tea was purchased. “The takeaway is only close to the distance list, and many customers who are far away will find a purchase.” The reporter noticed that the beverage shop only uses the lid of the cup to seal. Because of the long distance, in order to prevent spillage, the beverage purchase will fix the lid with tape as much as possible, and block all possible gaps. The merchant acquiesces to this. behavior.

“A roll of tape was quickly used up,” the waiter said.

The most expensive plastic product in the beverage store is the beverage cup for milk tea.

In the summer, the sales of cold drinks have risen steadily. Some merchants have used the transparent characteristics of plastic cups to produce milky tea with gradient color, dirty tea with oil painting and colorful fruit tea. In the network red milk tea Xicha Chaoyang Joy City store, in the 15 minutes of the reporter’s observation, nearly 50 cups of milk tea were produced, all using plastic cups.

Most of the rest of the stores are like this. Although most of the stores have prepared paper cups, they are only used when making hot drinks. But today, there are very few customers who buy hot drinks. A net red drink shop famous for dirty tea has simply abandoned the paper cups, and all the drinks in the store are packaged in plastic cups. Among the 40 beverage outlets visited by the reporters, only one of the textured beverage stores used paper cups.

At the same time, there is also a problem with the straight lid of the cup package. Due to the exquisite design, it also needs to have a sealing function. The direct drinking covers observed by the reporter are all plastic products.

The reporter found that the plastic cups and cup lids used in most beverage stores are clearly marked as food grade PP5 plastic, but there are still a small number of stores that use plastic cups and plastic closures that are soft and thin without any logo.

Some merchants use a hot film sealing machine to package drinks, but the plastic film used for sealing only prints the brand name of the store. The reporter did not observe the relevant quality level mark. Close to the edge of the plastic cup sealed by the hot film, you can smell the special taste of the plastic products.

In some e-commerce platforms, the reporter found that the plastic cup of PP5 material has become the mainstream product. This kind of product adopts the injection molding process. The wholesale price of a 500ML plastic cup is less than 0.3 yuan. If it is matched with the matching cup cover and plastic sealing plug. The set price is about 0.4 yuan. In an electric store, the reporter found that the straws in plastic packaging are priced at $3 per 100, while the straws in paper packaging are $4 per 100. The store said that if the purchase is over 200 yuan, not only can it be reduced by 10 yuan, but also the straw can be given free of charge. Plastic washing machine

The environmentally-friendly paper cups cost nearly 0.5 yuan each. Despite the banner of “health and environmental protection”, the above e-commerce also admits that there are plastic coating processes on the inside of these cups, which cannot be completely degraded in the environment. “It should be said to be half. degradation”.

What do consumers do with these plastic drink cups?

On the platform, there is such a problem: You bought a cup of very delicate milk tea on the street. How to deal with the tea cup after drinking? Most netizens said that they “throw away directly”.

In the face of more and more serious plastic pollution, some beverage stores have been transformed to try non-plastic products, but the clerk is not sensitive to plastic waste.

Although Starbucks introduced a system of self-contained cups, the reporter did not find any relevant coupons in the three stores surveyed. The store staff will not give any explanation on this offer when customers buy drinks.

At noon on May 23, the Starbucks store was crowded with customers who chatted, and almost everyone held cold drinks on their hands. When the reporter asked if the food could choose the ceramic mug, the waiter of the Starbucks store in Chaoyang Joy City said that there was no mug in the store; the clerk of Tongzhou Wanda Store promised to use the ceramic cup after confirming it to the supervisor.

In another similarly located Costa coffee shop, although a large number of ceramic coffee cups for dine-in food were prepared in the store, in the half hour that the reporter observed, none of the customers sitting in the store used ceramic cups. When the reporter orders, the clerk also directly uses the plastic cup.

In a red drink shop in Chaoyang Joy City, the store arranges a waiter to stay in the dining area and clean up the desktop garbage in time. Although the plastic cup used in the beverage shop clearly marked the words “recyclable garbage”, three small trash cans were erected in the small store, but the waiter did not separate the plastic garbage from the domestic garbage when cleaning up the garbage. Instead, one brain pours into a trash can, which is completely mixed with non-recyclable garbage.

In another beverage store specializing in freshly squeezed juice, the reporter found that several recycling bins were placed on a single table to uniformly recycle the plastic packaging of the customer to remove the straw. However, these recycling bins are virtually ineffective: one becomes a trash can, throwing paper towels and bags indiscriminately; others become storage bins for new straws.

In the investigation, the reporter also asked the clerk of some beverage stores to use paper cups, but almost all were rejected. The reason is similar, that is, “for hot drinks only”.

In addition to the plastic products that must be used, a large number of plastic bags produced by beverage stores are also worth noting.

Although some stores offer paper bags for take-away, most merchants only offer plastic bags when packing a single drink. In a beverage shop close to the cinema, the clerk does not ask if the customer is packing, but instead drinks the drink directly into the plastic bag and gives it to the customer.

Beijing citizens Kangxing frequent drinks take-out, accumulated a lot of take-away paper bags, “paper bags are still useful, I generally do not leave plastic bags, because the opening is small, can not install anything.”

Every time I make a drink with my friends, Kangxing will pack up a large bag of garbage. “Basically all plastic packaging. Straws, cups, bags, seals, and the plastic bags that are directly stuffed back into the package. It is difficult to find. The place where these things are reused, thrown away after drinking, is truly one-off.”

At present, in the world, only plastic straws are used as an example. The consumption is amazing. The United States discards about 500 million plastic straws every day, and the total length of the joints can be two and a half times around the earth.

“The straw is mostly used in the catering industry. It is mainly made of polypropylene material. This material has the advantage of heat resistance. It can withstand high temperatures of 130 ° C. It can be put into the microwave plastic, so it can be used to drink hot drinks.” Southeast University Energy and Huang Wei, an associate professor at the School of Environment, said that the chemical stability of polypropylene is very good. In addition to being attacked by concentrated sulfuric acid and concentrated nitric acid, it is relatively stable to various other chemical agents, so the pipette is extremely difficult to degrade naturally.

Statistics show that more than 8 million tons of plastic waste enters the ocean every year, including plastic straws, which has a serious impact on marine life, fisheries and tourism, resulting in economic losses of 8 billion US dollars. Plastic waste kills millions of seabirds, 100,000 marine mammals and countless fish every year.

Studies have shown that if the status quo is ignored, by 2050, the weight of plastic waste in the ocean will exceed the total weight of fish.

Plastic waste not only harms marine life, it can also threaten human health. Plastic waste will gradually break down in the ocean, forming a large number of microplastic particles less than 5 mm in diameter. The toxic and harmful substances contained in the microplastic particles themselves and the toxic and harmful substances adsorbed in the water will accumulate through the food chain and may eventually enter the human body.

Penny Lyndeck, a molecular biologist at the Plymouth Institute of Oceanography in the United Kingdom, said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency that the “plastic limit order” will help consumers change the habit of using plastic straws, and consumers will soon be able to adapt to alternatives. If more and more companies promote alternatives such as paper straws, the cost of replacement may fall, and the cost factor will not make it difficult for merchants to comply with the “plastic limit order”.

Since 2018, China has completely banned the entry of 24 types of solid waste such as waste plastics. Eric Solheim, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, believes that China’s fight against plastic “foreign waste” imports is a signal for rich countries that should strengthen recycling and reduce non-essential products such as plastic straws.

Analysts believe that ordinary consumers should be promoted to minimize the use of disposable plastic products such as plastic straws.

On World Environment Day 2018, Solheim issued a message calling on consumers to refuse to use disposable plastic products, purchase recyclable goods, and develop reasonable spending habits in their lives. Consumers can’t just play the role of a participant, but should also be a driving factor in driving changes in the behavior of suppliers and retailers.

In this regard, many industry insiders believe that relevant departments, industry associations, etc. should increase the promotion of plastic restrictions. At present, disposable plastic products commonly used in the take-out industry and the catering industry have seriously increased the environmental burden. Therefore, governments and associations should guide enterprises and consumers to reduce the production and consumption of disposable plastic products. For enterprises, they should comply with the trend and consensus of green environmental protection, and produce disposable products that are easy to degrade as much as possible, or disposable products that are easy to recycle.