Experts suggest legislation on mandatory recycling of glass bottles
The recovery and recycling of glass bottles is nothing. It not only saves resources and energy, but also realizes waste reduction, reduces the workload of the environmental sanitation department, and saves the land for landfill, which is the only way for the construction of "waste free city". However, China's glass bottle recycling lacks the corresponding laws and regulations to strengthen the implementation. In this regard, the environmental jurist, Chang Jiwen, thinks that all regions are now promoting the legislation of waste classification, and should take the opportunity to incorporate the mandatory recycling and recycling of glass bottles into local legislation.
The glass bottles discarded at will at the seaside are easy to become broken glass, which is not easy to degrade in nature, leaving a hidden danger to tourists at the seaside.
How to recycle glass bottles
Because of its strong barrier and high transparency, glass bottles are widely used as packaging containers for beer, beverage, condiment and cosmetics. This is a special market where new and old bottles coexist, and most of them are old bottles. In packaging products, the production of glass bottles is one of the most energy consuming, so the enterprises have great value in recycling their own glass bottles.
Even if the glass bottle with more energy consumption is recycled, 800 kg of quartz sand, 130 kg of caustic soda, 130 kg of limestone and 140 l of heavy oil can be saved for each ton of glass packaging recycled.
As for the more energy-saving and convenient prototype reuse methods, such as the prototype reuse of beer bottle, water bottle, soy sauce bottle, vinegar bottle, beverage bottle and some can head bottles, the cost and energy saved for the manufacturer and environmental protection treatment are more considerable. It can be imagined that if the ten billion bottles of beer produced every year in China are made entirely of quartz, what an amazing number of raw materials, energy consumption and pollution discharge are needed.
Although white wine bottles and medicine (medical) bottles are almost not recycled, these glass packages can also be made into other useful materials after recycling, such as glass fragments used in building bricks, glass wool insulation materials, reflector materials and clothing decorations, can also be used to produce sewage pipes, asbestos tiles and other building materials and daily necessities.
The recovery rate of waste glass in China is very low
In the field of food packaging, glass containers have the advantages of beautiful appearance, high transparency, good chemical stability, strong corrosion (acid) resistance, and easy to manufacture. Enterprises that produce wine, juice drinks and yoghurt tend to use glass bottles for packaging.
Glass containers have the advantages of beautiful appearance, good chemical stability, acid resistance, etc. many manufacturers of alcohol, juice drinks and yoghurt like to use glass bottles for packaging
However, the recovery rate of China's glass products is really too low. The average recycling rate of glass products in the world is close to 50%, in Taiwan, 84% and even 97% in Germany. However, due to the neglect of this work in China, there is a lack of relevant statistical data. There is only one data in 2006 found on the Internet. At that time, some scholars estimated that the recovery rate of waste glass in China was only 13%, far below the world average level. On the one hand, there are some reasons for the low recovery rate in China, such as the unreasonable setting of recycling outlets, the non matching of recycling devices, the uneven quality of recycling personnel at the grass-roots level, the small scale and irregular operation of recycling companies, etc. On the other hand, in recent years, China's glass bottle production capacity is surplus, and enterprises may spend less money on new glass bottles than recycling, so they are naturally reluctant to work hard to recycle.
However, if glass bottles are mixed with other wastes and disposed by traditional landfill, it will not only waste energy, bring pollution, but also waste a lot of land resources. Therefore, from the perspective of energy conservation and environmental protection, the recycling of glass containers in the food and beverage industry is imperative, especially the use of large quantities of bottled beer and drinks. From the perspective of practice, food production enterprises recycle their own glass containers, retain their original use purpose, and avoid being discarded as domestic garbage. This is the most environmentally-friendly recycling mode, as well as a manifestation of the environmental responsibility of food producers, which is undoubtedly worth promoting and promoting.
Of course, with a complete recycling network, consumers must also have the awareness of environmental protection, otherwise, without the cooperation of consumers, the recycling system will eventually become a mere formality.
The recycling of old bottles by food enterprises does not belong to solid waste
Fang Gang, senior engineer of clean production and circular economy research center of Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences, thinks that "the key battle of pollution prevention and control is one of the three major battles put forward by the 19th National Congress of the people's Republic of China to complete the decisive period of building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way.". Enterprises recycling their own glass bottles will bring a positive impact on the fight against pollution. Because the chemical properties of glass bottles are very stable, it is difficult to decompose naturally. It will take at least 4000 years for them to completely degrade in nature. Some glass bottles also contain heavy metals such as zinc and copper, which will pollute the soil and groundwater. Sharp pieces of glass products will also cause inconvenience or even harm to the society and people's life, so the best way to deal with waste glass bottles is for enterprises to recycle and reuse their own glass bottles. "
So, when enterprises carry out their own glass bottle recycling, is the old glass bottle recycled to the plant solid waste? In this regard, Fang Gang clarified: "according to the general principles of solid waste identification standards (GB 34330-2017), any package that can be used for the original purpose without repair and processing, or that can meet the national, local or industry standard for product quality and be used for the original purpose after repair and processing at the production point, may not be used as a solid
