Background
The global plastic production number is almost 45x larger than how it was in 1960. According to Our World in Data, global plastic production in 1960 was only 8 million tons. In 2015, the global plastic production is around 367 million tons and plastic production is expected to reach 1.1 billion tons by 2050 (Data from ChinaIRN.COM). As very little plastic is recycled, a great deal of plastic (91%) enters the environment and causes white pollution. Around 400 million tons of plastic is produced each year, while 50 percent is single-use plastics that can take up to 450 years to decompose. In China, only a shocking 9 percent of all plastic is recycled. Where do the remaining 91 percent of plastic go? Our environment.
Proposed end users
Overview
This year, we focus on two types of possible end users, including factories (to Business) and environmentally conscious consumers (to Consumers). And we continue to pay attention to the potential users related to the factory as last year, but the difference is that this year we have conducted a more in-depth assessment, assumption, and conducted on-site inspections to verify the feasibility of the project. In addition, our focus is not only on the factory application level, we envision products that can be made from degraded plastics, which covers a wider range.
To Business:
- Recycling factories: like Haili, receive waste from many sources and degrade the plastic content physically, chemically, or biologically into raw materials, finally selling them to manufacturers.
- Plastic manufacturers: like Jiangyin Zhongda Soft Plastic New Material Co., Ltd., purchase environmentally friendly raw materials to produce products like plastic film or tent.
To Consumers:
- Environmentally conscious consumers: like IKEA, consumers there pay attention to the idea of environmental protection, such as the texture or longevity, when making purchases.
Recycling factory ---Seeking ways to apply our project
Recycling factories can be our proposed users. This year, we got in touch with a recycling factory. Zhejiang Haili Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. is a recycled polyester resource comprehensive utilization enterprise. The main purpose was to conduct a field visit to the professional plastic recycling factory, so that our ideas could be closer to reality. Besides, to understand the whole process of recycling plastic bottles would help us think of possible problems in the project. Also, we hope to obtain suggestions from professionals to improve our project in the future.
Haili factory has two channels to retrieve plastic bottles: one is to collect bottles scattered outdoors from waste recycling stations, finally centralized through household suppliers as well as baling stations and transported to the factory; the other is to collect bottles from residential households and specialized places via recycling individuals together to platform recyclers, who will sort and pack them uniformly to the factory.
After this trip, we understood the whole plastic recycling chain and also got the opportunity to observe the interior of a professional factory closely. During the interview, we know that our method still has some degree of limitation which needs to be perfect in the future, like the external environment control of yeast growth. Combined with our project, we assumed a larger scale of application. First, we decided to collaborate with recycling factories like Haili, Zhengjiang and replaced the final step of their flowline. Figure 5 illustrated our imaginary procedure and sketch applied to Haili factory.
Plastic factories ---Possible challenges
Plastic factories are our proposed users too. To achieve our goal of collaborating with other plastic recycling factories to further apply our biological degradation methodologies on a larger scale, we decided to interview Mr. Wang in search of possible investment and cooperation. Mr. Wang, head of the factory at Jiangyin Zhongda Soft Plastic New Material Co., Ltd, which focuses on producing plastic film for customers using recycled plastics.
Background
Mr. Wang talked about the three basic principles of his company and the future of plastic recycling. Specifically,
- Complete bio-degradation: The company currently uses PET raw materials to produce packaging films, using a proportional mix of new and recycled raw materials to design product formulations. However, as society develops and technology advances, various types of plastics such as PBAT, PBS, PLA, etc. have emerged that are fully biodegradable. The company, in the last two years, has paid more attention to the development and use of PET and other degradable plastics among its customers.
- Easily recyclable: The company is currently working on using different grades of the same plastic to meet the different functional requirements of a product, which can facilitate recycling and reusing.
- Energy-efficient and environmental-friendly: The company is gradually shifting from relying only on industrial electricity, which is made from coal and other unsustainable energy sources, to solar energy and additional environmentally sustainable energy sources. For example, the roof of his company has already been installed with an array of solar panels.
Possible challenges
Mr. Wang commented on the potential of our plan. He admitted that we are highly innovative in using enzymes to degrade plastic and have established a complete ecosystem of PET sorting, recycling, decomposition, and reuse. At the same time, it faces some challenges as well.
- Experimentally, the project would work and we need to consider how to do it on a mass scale -- doing it in the case of large-scale industrialization will have higher requirements. When degrading plastics at a company level, a significant amount of yeast and enzymes must be used. However, the selection of efficient or functioning enzymes easily done in experimental conditions would face great difficulty during mass production due to the production condition.
- The sorting and recycling process is also challenging in terms of ensuring the required recyclables and the purity of the enzymatic degradation products.
- China's safety and environmental protection policies for the transportation or reuse of organic chemical products are becoming increasingly strict, and the treatment of post-industrial wastewater or other materials needs to be carefully considered to ensure that there will be no discharge pollution, and the design of this link is very important.
- At present, the capacity of PET bio enzyme degradation experimental stage is still low, and there is still a lot of room for progress. The company needs to consider the project's short-term or long-term economic benefits when making investment decisions. If the project capacity continues to rise in the long run, it is believed that it can improve the possibility of industrialization and strengthen the company's investment intention.
Mr. Wang's comments and suggestions on the project are significant for us and give us a positive view of our research. Additionally, we are also provided with a follow-up on the direction and focus of the subsequent industrialized research.
To Consumers---Proposed products
Through the Factories interview, we learned about our implementation more comprehensively and decided to further interview the downstream market—IKEA, a place to directly sell related products. Through research, we found several products that could be made from recycled plastics. After plastics are degraded, they could be made into agricultural films, textile products, packags, decorations, etc.
Recycled products are just around us
We have learned from Mr. Fang, vice general manager of Haili that the recycled polyester has been used in most of the textile products in IKEA, for example curtains, carpets and so on. On Aug. 16th, Lichang Wang, He Zhang, and Xuan Li visited Baoshan IKEA, Shanghai, to see the downstream market of recycling products. Also, we had an interview with the sales assistant, purchasing manager of IKEA Shanghai there and a few customers to discuss more details about the relationship between materials and sales and to observe consumers’ reactions.
We talked to a sales assistant and asked about the most frequently questions she heard from customers and if they would notice or care about the materials used. She told us that customers cared most about the comfort level and ease of cleaning while most of them won’t even notice the materials used.
We then randomly interviewed some customers, showed them the product tag, and asked if they have ever noticed that the products they bought were made by recycling material, while all said no, most of them were quite impressed knowing the fact.
Afterwards, we interviewed purchasing manager of IKEA Shanghai, Mr. Wang. According to him, IKEA has been devoted to protecting the environment for years, they wish to realize the goal that all materials IKEA products used would be recyclable or reproducible by 2030 and be purchased in a responsible manner. Currently, most of the textile in IKEA was made from recycling plastic waste, IKEA quality and standards in addition to products’ traceability will remain unchanged as for new materials. For sure, the cost was higher than before, but IKEA would make sure that the price not higher than before. Therefore, everyone could afford the green product.
During the events at IKEA, we learned how companies down the plastics recycling chain operate. During the tour, we took close look at the labels of textile products, found that many of which contain recyclable materials, and there were plastic recycling signs all over the mall. This shows the importance and action that major companies are now taking to recycle plastic. In addition, during the interviews with passers-by, we realized that the concept of plastic recycling is not yet fully popular and there is a long way to go to promote it. In the future, we hope that our project can spread this environmental protection idea more widely. This offline visit provided us with a deeper insight into the market of recycled products and information about their sales as well as customers’ tendencies toward them.
Concerns
Policies
According to Mr. Wang, head of the factory at Jiangyin Zhongda Soft Plastic New Material Co., Ltd., China has strict policies on packaging and transportation of organic products, including the sanitary requirement, steadiness, and waterproofness. Therefore, we need to make sure that our products meet national standards for further examination and approval. In addition, Mr. Wang recommended us to pay attention to industrial management policies as well.
Collaboration
After interviewing with Mr. Fang, the vice general manager of Haili, and Mr. Wang, head of the factory at Jiangyin Zhongda Soft Plastic New Material Co., Ltd., we hope to cooperate with plastic recycling manufacture companies and insert our project to a specific part of the flowline.
However, since our project is still in the incubation stage, other companies may work with us at a great risk, leading to losses of profits. Therefore, Mr. Wang suggested that we should make our project lucrative to companies, so they would feel more motivated to adopt our methodologies.
During the interview, Mr. Fang mentioned that the idea of our project, environmental protection by recycling plastics biologically, could deserve a higher cost in the contemporary context. More and more citizens nowadays focus on the material of a product they purchase, because they are willing to contribute to the protection of the earth. However, whether the extra cost is in line with the effects achieved becomes the vital part.
Safety
Candida tropicalis
Candida tropicalis is the biosafety level 1 host for surface display. Besides, in order to prevent the strain from leaking, we knocked out the URA3 gene in the wild strain through the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system. Therefore, Candida tropicalis loses the ability to synthesize uracil and becomes the uracil-deficient strain. Uracil-deficient Candida tropicalis cannot survive in an environment without uracil. Thus, it prevents the strain from leaking to the nature to a certain extent.
Growing conditions for enzymes
Enzymes have strict requirements for conditions. For instance, if the pH value and temperature of the environment are too extreme, it will be tough for enzymes to grow or even deactivate them. Therefore, we must control the environment quite carefully when considering further implementation.