Waste glass is a renewable resource that can be recycled indefinitely, and its recycling is of great significance to save resources and reduce waste. However, due to its low recycling value, waste glass recycling has not received due attention.
Relevant data show that in 2022, the output of flat glass in China was 1.013 billion weight boxes, down 3.7% from the same period last year. The output of waste glass was about 24.327 million tons, an increase of 4.3% over the previous year, of which the output of flat glass and waste glass products was 11.483 million tons, an increase of 2.2% over the previous year, accounting for 47.2% of the total output; The output of daily glass and waste glass products was 10.724 million tons, up 6.6% year on year, accounting for 44.1% of the total output; the output of other glass and waste glass products was 2.12 million tons, up 4.3% year on year, accounting for 8.6% of the total output. In 2022, China's waste glass recycling volume was about 8.5 million tons, down 15.4% from the same period last year.
From the point of view of recycling cost, waste glass recycling is difficult, costly and inefficient. In the process of recycling, waste glass is heavy, low value and fragile, which leads to high cost of collection, loading and unloading, storage and transportation, and becomes an important factor limiting glass recycling. In the processing process, waste glass needs to be classified by color, coated with film on the surface and cleaned by impurities. Data show that the recycling price of waste glass is generally between 330 and 460 yuan per ton, with poor economic benefits and prone to price "upside-down" phenomenon. In addition, the processing enterprises are small and scattered, which makes it more difficult to promote the waste glass recycling project.
As far as the recycling category of renewable resources is concerned, the economic benefits of waste glass are relatively weak . In 2022, the total amount of recycling of ten kinds of renewable resources in China, such as scrap iron and steel, waste plastics, waste paper and waste textiles, is about 371 million tons, more than twice the amount of recycling in 2012, and the total amount of recycling exceeds 1.31 trillion yuan, of which scrap iron and steel is the largest variety of recycling, accounting for more than 60% of the total amount of recycling in 2022. At present, the traditional high-value renewable resources, such as scrap iron and steel, scrap non-ferrous metals, waste paper, waste plastics and so on, have basically formed a relatively complete recycling industry chain, but the low-value recyclables such as waste glass and waste textiles are affected by many factors, such as high recycling cost, low utilization value and limited utilization level. The corresponding policy standards, capital investment and trading platform also need to be improved.
Under the guidance of the concept of green development, in 2021, China issued industrial policies on accelerating the establishment and improvement of a green low-carbon cycle development system, pointing out the direction for the high-quality development of renewable resources industry. The Work Program for the Construction of "Waste-free Cities" in the "14th Five-Year Plan" period proposes to speed up the construction of a recycling system for waste materials, promote the integration of waste classification and transportation with the recycling of renewable resources, and promote the recycling of low-value recyclables such as waste glass. With the increasing attention paid by the state to the environmental protection industry, it is believed that the recycling industry will gradually move towards a high-quality development path of scale, standardization, industrialization, agglomeration, greening and informatization in the future.
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