Can "degradable materials" really degrade?

The survey also found that there is disorderly competition in the degradable product market, and it is difficult for consumers and operators to distinguish the authenticity of "degradable products".

An engineer from the Shanghai Institute of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Technology pointed out that degradable materials are divided into biodegradable, photodegradable, thermal oxygen degradation, compostable degradation and other types. The applicable standards, production processes and costs of each type are different, and the degree of degradation varies greatly. In theory, products with high degradation should be preferred; but in the market, it is difficult for consumers and companies to distinguish different types of degradation, resulting in cost and price becoming the most important competitive factors for related products. As a result, the degradable materials ultimately selected by companies may not be the most ideal environmentally friendly materials.

At the same time, small businesses and consumers also have great difficulties in purchasing degradable products. At present, large shopping malls, supermarkets and catering companies mostly customize degradable products directly from manufacturers, while small businesses and consumers usually purchase them through channels such as the Internet. The Yangtze River Delta Consumer Protection Alliance searched through multiple online platforms and found that there are many products marked as "degradable plastic bags" with large price differences, but due to the lack of comparative information, small businesses and consumers have no way to judge the authenticity.

In addition, there are also shortcomings in the detection methods for degradable materials. For example, the detection cycle of biodegradable plastics is as long as 3 to 6 months, and the cost is relatively expensive; if rapid testing is used, only the composition of plastic products can be detected, but "containing degradable ingredients" is not necessarily related to "whether plastics can be degraded". This leads to the situation that degradable tableware products on the market are mixed with fakes.

Consumer protection experts and standard experts suggest that it is necessary to establish a unified degradable material identification standard to prevent bad money from driving out good money, which is also conducive to the identification of buyers.

In addition to substitutes, what other ideas are there for reducing plastic?

The Yangtze River Delta Consumer Protection Alliance also proposed that in addition to using substitutes to reduce plastic products, we can also expand our thinking and start from the perspectives of packaging design and service mode upgrades.

For example, the survey found that catering takeout has become a source of growth in plastic waste. 3.6% of the respondents order takeout for almost every meal, 22.4% order takeout almost every day, and 59.5% order takeout several times a week. The consumer protection department believes that this set of data shows that the environmental threat posed by takeout plastic lunch boxes is increasing day by day, and the takeout industry needs to be restructured.

In response to this issue, Meituan said that it has made upgrading takeout packaging an important topic for the sustainable development of the platform. On the one hand, promote degradable lunch boxes. As of the end of last year, Meituan has funded 7 suppliers to develop 20 fully biodegradable lunch boxes, and put 350,000 sets on the platform for free trial, and optimized according to the feedback of merchants and consumers. On the other hand, scientific design can also reduce the use of lunch box materials. For example, Meituan, in conjunction with Debai Packaging Laboratory and Jiaoban Pizza, designed and developed a new zero-plastic pizza box. The new pizza box can reduce the use of paper by 50%, and replace the plastic bracket supporting the pizza box with a paper bracket, eliminating plastic.