Secrets of the hottest disposable tableware Market

Unveiling the disposable tableware market

on November 6, CCTV's weekly quality report reported that some disposable tableware manufacturers in Hebei, Tianjin and other places added excessive amounts of industrial calcium carbonate to their raw materials, mixed with waste plastic particles and other industrial plastic waste and industrial paraffin. Using this disposable tableware, consumers' metabolic system, hematopoietic system, nervous system, etc. will be seriously damaged. With the broadcast of the program, media all over the country have reported the discovery of toxic lunch boxes, such as Jinan, Shandong, Shanxi and other places

the disposable lunch boxes marked with "environmental protection" and "degradation" that are often used in our daily life are so shoddy that there are major safety hazards. Why is this problem related to everyone's food safety and health repeated? Is there any story behind the lunch box storm that we don't know? Will this lunch box storm be like what some dealers call "once the spotlight passes, everything will be the same"

bad money drives out good money

this lunch box storm is another problem surrounding the safety of our daily diet after the plastic wrap PVC crisis in October. "Not only are the things we eat unsafe, but now the packaging is also a continuous problem. These toxic packaging make us worry about everything we eat." The China economic times interviewed some residents of Beijing Tiantongyuan at random, and all the answers were "unsafe, not at ease"

the fuse of the lunch box crisis sweeping the capital is that the national environmental protection product quality supervision and testing center declared that 80% of the disposable lunch boxes in the capital were unqualified

"CCTV's attention to the quality of plastic lunch boxes this time shows that there are indeed serious problems in this industry, and these problems are also a general outbreak of long-term hidden dangers in the industry." Liu Jia, deputy director of the wood plastic/composite Professional Committee of the China Association for comprehensive utilization of resources, which is in charge of the Environmental Resources Department of the national development and Reform Commission, said

the disposable tableware materials that can be seen in the market now include expanded polystyrene, paperboard coating, plant straw, pulp molding, edible powder molding and non foaming plastic. Non foaming plastic is the most important material. The market share of disposable lunch boxes is different due to the difference of raw material costs. "At present, Beijing consumes about 2million disposable lunch boxes every day, of which at least 60% are plastic, and about 20% are foam and pulp." Dongjinshi, deputy director of China Packaging Resources Comprehensive Utilization Committee, told that the development of Pulp environmental protection lunch boxes in Beijing disposable lunch box market is less and less than that of plastics. The main problem is that the cost of plastics is low, and the market recognizes this kind of "high quality and low price" plastic lunch boxes

"our disposable lunch box is the cheapest in the whole powerful Jinan Shijin family market. You are satisfied with taking the bag from me. If you can find something cheaper than mine, I will give it to you for nothing." He was warmly received by a Hebei boss at the north gate of No. 2 Huilongguan trading market in the north of Changping District

this shop is about 30 square meters, and there are all kinds of disposable tableware, including lunch boxes, trays, paper cups, chopsticks and so on, in the hallways outside the store and in the house

when he said he wanted to buy some eco-friendly lunch boxes, the boss strongly recommended a plastic lunch box of about 0.17 yuan, and said that there was no pulp eco-friendly lunch box in the store for the time being. "At present, few people want this kind of pulp eco-friendly lunch box, because the price is generally very expensive, at least 25 cents a, in fact, plastic lunch boxes are cheaper and safer than pulp lunch boxes. These plastic lunch boxes are also environmentally friendly degradation products." Indeed, these plastic lunch boxes are printed with the words "environmental protection", which is obviously better than the simple DSP or 32-bit MCU "degradable". When we said we wanted some pulp lunch boxes, the Hebei boss handed over a business card and announced that we could get the required Pulp environmental protection lunch boxes tomorrow

it was learned in the interview that there were originally fiveorsix shops selling disposable tableware here, but in the past half a month, because Beijing Industry and commerce, environmental protection and the media paid different "attention" to various plastic tableware, the original prosperity of the disposable tableware Street temporarily "disappeared". Finally, two shops dealing in disposable tableware were found in the seasoning Department of Huilongguan market, where they found disposable foam lunch boxes that were previously banned from use and sale in Beijing

"I'll sell whoever's cheap", the merchant who still buys, sells and wholesales foam lunch boxes told that they have sold disposable tableware in this market for several years. Generally, those products with low prices are easier to sell, such as foam lunch boxes for 6 cents and plastic lunch boxes for 13 cents

in a short time later, I found that some people like migrant workers drove minivans and bought five bags of foam lunch boxes

"most of the profits are taken by these sellers! Some original lunch box manufacturers have closed down or changed production, because the profits of this industry have been squeezed by the market. Now the disposable tableware manufacturers work for these sellers." According to Dong Jinshi, disposable tableware is a "meager profit product". A formally produced polypropylene (PP) lunch box costs about 20 cents. The profit of the enterprise is kept within 10%, and even a few cents per lunch box

in order to clearly understand the real cost of disposable lunch boxes, Xiao Zhijun, general manager of Beijing junzhiming packaging products Co., Ltd., was interviewed. It is reported that this enterprise is one of the lunch box manufacturers designated by Beijing student dining Education Commission

"the raw material we use is polypropylene manufactured by Beijing Yanshan Branch of China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation. Polypropylene is the main raw material. This raw material costs 11000 yuan/ton. According to the standard weight of 14 grams per lunch box, the cost of pure raw material for each plastic lunch box is 0.15 yuan, the processing fee and tax cost 4 cents, and the final profit is about 2 cents." President Xiao quickly quoted the production cost of the lunch box

"Polypropylene accounts for 70% to 80% of the general qualified products, and the rest are fillers. However, in order to save costs, some manufacturers have added more than 50% of talc powder, calcium carbonate and other fillers to their products. Our current end customers are mainly CCTV, Beijing TV and Beijing's large fast food companies. Many plastic materials that meet the green packaging can not be used in a large area. As for those wholesale prices We cannot enter the market of 0.15 yuan each. " President Xiao believes that his own products are rejected by a large number of low-quality low-cost lunch boxes from many large markets

according to statistics, Beijing consumes 3billion plastic bags, 700million disposable plastic tableware and 500million plastic bottles a year. More than 60% of the 2million disposable lunch boxes consumed every day in Beijing have different quality problems. Among them, 400000 are foamed plastic tableware, accounting for about 20%; 20% of them meet the requirements of sanitation and environmental protection, about 400000; There are about 1.2 million inferior tableware with quality problems, especially hygiene problems

"this is the paradox of the market. The better the product, the harder it is to really enter the big market. It is often the formal enterprise that is rejected by the market." Dong Jinshi said with deep feeling that after 2000, the country has twice overhauled the disposable tableware market in Beijing, but now the low-quality disposable lunch boxes still account for more than 70% of the whole Beijing market

"degradation" and "environmental protection" are both virtual concepts

it was found in Huilongguan trading market that a large number of people came to buy such disposable lunch boxes, including construction teams, schools, some factories and a few administrative departments

when asked why a buyer who was working on a construction site in Beiqijia Town, Changping District bought foamed lunch boxes that were banned by the state, he said he didn't know about it. He had always bought such lunch boxes in this market at a price of only 6 cents

"since there is such a low-cost demand in the market, some enterprises will reduce product costs and pursue maximum profits without strict supervision, and eventually often sacrifice the most basic safety and environmental protection requirements of products." Dongjinshi told that the inferior products produced by some small factories in Yongqing, Hebei Province exposed in the weekly quality report were supplied to Beijing, and more than half of the local market was occupied by products produced from cheap and inferior raw materials such as Hebei and Tianjin. They mainly relied on polypropylene powder of 3600 yuan/ton to replace polypropylene, the main raw material used in the production of lunch boxes as stipulated by the state, because polypropylene was 11000 yuan per ton

at present, foamed tableware has been banned by the state. There are fewer problems with paperboard, straw, pulp, edible powder and other types of tableware, and the most common problem is non foamed plastic tableware

"degradation has always been a technically difficult problem for disposable lunch boxes." Dong Jinshi said that foamed tableware is difficult to decay and degrade in the environment, causing "white pollution". The former State Economic and Trade Commission required a comprehensive ban on foamed plastic tableware in 2001, which has improved

the main ways to solve the waste of foamed plastic tableware are paper tableware replacement, plastic degradation, recycling, landfill, incineration, etc. However, the overall pollution of paper tableware is serious, the price is high, the use performance is poor, and the source of raw materials is tight, which is not in line with national conditions; Incineration, landfill, degradation and other methods cannot completely solve the pollution problem, and will produce new pollution

according to the road taken by developed countries and the actual situation of our country, recycling and reuse of various packaging wastes is the only feasible way, and degradation is only a supplement to recycling

Jun knows that Jiang Changzhi, the sales manager of the company, told and found out the physical properties of this kind of dandelion rubber, and described some product quality problems in the disposable tableware market in Beijing, "Some so-called environmental friendly plastic tableware use industrial grade plastic raw materials and waste plastics instead of food grade raw materials in production, and arbitrarily add industrial paraffin and talc powder. There is no corporate logo on the products and packaging boxes, but the words' environmental friendly lunch box ',' degradable tableware 'or' urban environmental protection 'are also prominently marked on the outer packaging and fast food boxes. In fact, such products that are not easy to degrade and have no recycling value are not at all Comply with health and environmental requirements. "

Liu Jia, deputy director of the wood plastic/composite Professional Committee of the China Association for comprehensive utilization of resources, told that the so-called environmental friendly tableware refers to tableware made of pulp, cardboard, edible powder, plant fiber and other materials. They must be easy to recycle, easy to dispose and easy to degrade, and degradation is only one of them. Now plastic tableware can only be recycled and processed into other raw materials and finished products. As for the publicity of "plastic lunch boxes can be degraded", it is the behavior of enterprises to deceive consumers

practice has proved that the safety and health performance of various degradation products is much worse than that of pure plastic raw materials, and many products cannot guarantee human health. At present, all kinds of "degradable plastics" used in the world, whether photodegradation, biodegradation or other degradation, are not really able to convert plastics into harmless substances that can be integrated into the soil, but only split into plastic blocks with small volume or low molecular weight. It is almost impossible to decompose rapidly and completely in any environment

embarrassment of two disposable tableware associations

in this disposable lunch box storm, Dong Jinshi, head of Beijing environmental protection tableware joint organization, frequently appeared in the media