The report shows that the consumption of soft-packaging plastics in China is about 32.8 million tons in 2022.

2023-07-21

From CSTNET

Reporter: Fu Lili

On July 19th to 20th , the Green Recycled Plastics Supply Chain Forum was held in Suzhou in the year of 2023, at which the China Plastic Soft-Packaging Recycling Baseline Report (hereinafter referred to as the report) was officially released. The report shows that the consumption of soft-packaging plastics in China is about 32.8 million tons in 2022, of which the consumption of living source plastic soft-packaging is about 16 million tons, the recycling amount and the recycling rate is about 1.3 million tons and 8.7% respectively.

Plastic soft-packaging refers to various types of film packaging made of plastic as the main raw material, such as bags, sets, and packages. It includes living source plastic soft-packaging which is circulated and used in consumer sectors, and industrial soft-packaging which is generated during the production and processing.

The report shows that in 2022, the Chinese packaging industry consumed approximately 49.2 million tons of plastic, of which the soft-packaging plastic accounted for about 67%. Among the 16 million tons of living source plastic soft-packaging, the field of food accounted for 43%, followed by disposable shopping bags, vest bags, garbage bags accounted for 11%, the field of express, clothing , beauty and cosmetics packaging accounted for 9%, 8% and 6% respectively, and other fields accounted for 24%.

The report suggests that it is necessary to develop and implement the Green Eco-design Standards for plastic soft-packaging, and improve the easiness of recycling and regeneration of plastic soft-packaging, to carry out the construction of a recycling system for discarded plastic soft-packaging, and to explore a sustainable commercial operation mode, to establish a pilot chemical recycling plant, which can be experimented with and then replicated and promoted, to reduce the unnecessary investment and detours at the early stage, and to stimulate the expansion of demand for renewable plastics applications through policy, and to form a closed loop of plastic soft- packaging.