China Issues the Import of Waste PET Bottles

The Chinese government has introduced the long-awaited policy of importing used PET bottles.

The new regulations were issued in October. On November 4th, government officials and companies were invited to hold a seminar in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. Given that China is currently the world’s largest importer of used plastics, the new regulations are closely watched by countries around the world.

In the past, PET bottles had to be crushed into bottles before they could enter China. Officials said that this was mainly due to the fear that unclean wastes would flow into the importing country and cause pollution in this country.

However, given China's huge demand for new sources of raw materials, especially in the polyester fiber manufacturing industry, government officials said last year that they were brewing to liberalize the import of PET bottles.

The new regulations impose restrictions on importers of PET bottles: Importers are required to have a recycling plant, have a valid license for imported plastics imports, and are located in a dedicated recycling area. In the past three years, the amount of waste imported each year has reached at least 10,000. Ton.

For enterprises outside the existing reclaimed area, the annual waste import volume in the past three years must reach at least 30,000 tons.

Enterprises meeting the import regulations will be issued a unified import license by the State Environmental Protection Administration.

As the new regulations may have an impact on the global regenerative flow and may have further expanded the size of China's already large PET imports, this provision has attracted worldwide attention. Take the United States as an example. Over the past four years, more than half of the recycled PET bottles recovered annually in the United States have been exported to China.

The manager of a recycling company that has factories in both cities in China said that taking into account that the existing supply chain is already very mature, she believes that the introduction of the new regulations will not result in a significant increase in China's renewable PET imports, but may Boost the price of PET bottles and increase competition among buyers.

Park Ying, president of Parker, headquartered in Romeoville, Illinois, said that after the introduction of the new regulations, Hong Kong, which is the main shipping station, may be exported directly to the mainland.

Now, the entire bottle imported by a Hong Kong company can be reprocessed on its own, or it can be divided into small portions and transported to the Mainland via some loosely-regulated ports in neighboring Guangdong Province. Although this is not completely legal, it is already open to the Chinese recycling industry. The secret.

Ying Ying, who is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Plastics Recycling Committee of the China Plastics Processing Industry Association, said that after liberalizing the entire bottle of imports, there will be more suppliers participating in the competition, which may increase the price of PET bottles.

In an interview at the 5th China Plastics Recycling and Recycling Conference/Replenishment Fair (Replas) held in Ningbo from November 4th to 5th, Qu Ying said that those operators who have more direct control of waste bottle recycling may It will be the biggest beneficiary, such as a material recycling plant in the United States.

Parker also has a recycling plant in Qingdao, Shandong Province.

Other Chinese recycling companies attending the meeting also felt that the new regulations will attract more buyers to enter the market, promote price increases in some parts of the supply chain, and may allow end-users such as polyester fiber manufacturers to obtain waste PET directly. bottle.