Plastic pollution control: hot issues

1. What impact does the country's deployment of plastic pollution control have on the lives of ordinary people? Which products are available and which are not? There are many kinds of plastic products, why should the country take the lead in prohibiting and restricting the use of these current categories?

According to relevant national deployment requirements, by the end of this year, ordinary people living in municipalities directly under the Central Government, provincial capitals, and cities under separate state planning should pay attention to the fact that places such as supermarkets, pharmacies, bookstores and other places, catering packaged take-out services, cannot use non-degradable in various exhibition activities. Plastic shopping bags; non-degradable disposable plastic knives, forks and spoons cannot be used for dine-in services in built-up areas and scenic spots in cities above the prefecture level; disposable plastic straws in the catering industry nationwide can no longer be used, but even rolls Bags, fresh-keeping bags, garbage bags, milk, beverages and other food packaging with their own straws, we can also use them.

Since the implementation of household waste classification, most plastic wastes have been reasonably recycled and disposed of, such as recycling, landfill, incineration, etc. However, it is difficult to avoid leakage of some plastic wastes in the closed waste recycling system. In the natural environment, disposable plastic products among these leak-prone wastes are relatively difficult to recycle and easy to leak. For example, discarded plastic shopping bags are basically mixed into the domestic waste disposal system, and about half of them enter the landfill. These plastic wastes that enter the landfill with domestic waste take a long time to degrade completely, and there is a large environmental leakage. Risks; another example is the disposable non-degradable plastic knives, forks, spoons and disposable plastic straws used in the dine-in service of catering units, which are easily mixed into kitchen waste, which brings difficulties to the subsequent resource disposal and utilization of kitchen waste such as anaerobic fermentation . Therefore, it is the first to prohibit and restrict the use of these plastic products that are easy to leak into the natural environment, which can reduce the increment of plastic products leaking into the environment. Even if they leak into the environment, they can be degraded under natural conditions without causing long-term environmental pollution. 

2. After some plastic products can no longer be used, what else can we use? Are these alternatives environmentally friendly?

When we are actively participating in plastic pollution control, some plastic products in our daily life cannot be used, but there are still some alternative products that can be used. For example, in supermarkets, pharmacies, bookstores and other places, we can use non-plastic products such as environmentally friendly cloth bags and paper bags and degradable shopping bags; in dining places, we can use straw-free drinking cups, degradable plastic tableware, bamboo and wood tableware, etc. ; it will also facilitate our lives.

Like degradable plastic products, the degraded products are mainly carbon dioxide converted from organic carbon, microbial organic dead bodies, mineralized inorganic salts, etc., which are harmless to the environment; like cloth bags, they are durable and can be recycled many times. The raw material of paper bags is wood. It can be used multiple times, all belong to the environmental protection bag, which is harmless to the environment.

3. What is degradable plastic?

From the perspective of environmental protection, degradable plastics refer to a class of materials that can be completely degraded under specific conditions or in the natural environment, that is, in nature, such as soil, sand, compost, or anaerobic digestion or water, they can be finally completely degraded A class of polymer materials that become environmentally harmless substances. The degraded environmentally sound substances include carbon dioxide or/and methane, water, mineralized inorganic salts, and new biomass (such as dead microorganisms, etc.). In simple terms, degradable plastics are plastics that can be naturally degraded in the environment into small molecules that are non-polluting to the environment and do not cause harm to the environment and secondary pollution. At present, fully degradable polymers mainly include PLA, PBAT, PBS, PBSA, PCL, PPC, PGA, PPDO, etc.