循环经济知识港 Vol. 5

新塑料经济：终结一次性塑料包装垃圾

New Plastics Economy

塑料在我们的生活中无处不在，它至关重要，但是同时也是线性经济中最大的资源浪费。这一课，我们共同探讨如何利用循环经济的原则来解决塑料工业与生产内系统性的问题。

Plastic has become the workhorse material of the economy and yet it is one of the most wasteful examples of our existing linear take-make-dispose economy. This fifth online course explores how the principles of circular economy can be applied to the plastics industry to resolve issues in the current system.

人们对塑料包装毫无感情可言。无论是我们所购买的产品上的复杂的回收说明，还是塑料垃圾对野生动物产生巨大影响的惊人图片，抑或是塑料垃圾所导致的经济价值损失，无一不表明，近年来塑料问题在国际上受到了越来越多的关注。那么，如何终结每年流入海洋的800万吨塑料呢？

There’s no love lost for plastic packaging. Whether it’s complicated recycling instructions on the products we buy, startling images of the impacts on wildlife, or simply the economic value lost through waste, plastics have been climbing the international agenda for years. So how to end 8 million tonnes of plastic that still end up in the ocean each year?

案例分析

CASE STUDY

Replenish — 液体浓缩物定制包装平台

Replenish, Customizable packaging platform for liquid concentrates

一个低效又浪费的现状是：其实我们所购买的大部分清洁产品的主要成分都是水，而活性物质的比例很小。例如，在一瓶普通的清洁剂中，90%都是水，真正有价值的活性成分还不到10%。即便消费者在家中用水很方便，这些含水量巨大的清洁产品仍旧会被装进一次性塑料瓶中运输到各地。而这些塑料瓶仅被使用一次后就会面临被丢弃的命运。这种低效的产品销售模式造成了很多不必要的运输成本，和材料价值的损失。在美国，每年被废弃的塑料瓶大约有350亿个，其中大多数都被扔进了垃圾填埋场，但也有很多流入了海洋，随后又被海水冲上海滩。

An ineffective and wasteful status quo: many of the cleaning products we buy are mostly water with only a small amount of active ingredient. A typical bottle of cleaner is 90% water and less than 10% actual valuable ingredients. Despite already having water in our homes, these products are packaged and shipped in disposable plastic bottles that are used once and then thrown away. The inefficiency in how products are sold creates unnecessary shipping costs and loss of material value. In the U.S. 35 billion plastic bottles are thrown away each year, most end up in landfill, but many also leak into our oceans and wash up on our beaches.

Replenish 是一个通用型“包装平台”，即一个直接附有浓缩物填充仓的可重复使用瓶。该系统可用于大部分需要包装的液体产品，包括从清洁剂到饮料。这种包装可将浓缩物直接从填充仓分流到瓶内部的一个量杯里。使用者只需挤压填充仓，直到量杯装满，然后翻过来加水即可，瓶子也是可以重复使用的。Replenish 既销售其自身产品（99%为植物萃取），也与其它品牌合作，将其填充系统纳入到合作品牌的产品中。

Replenish is a universal “packaging platform”, a reusable bottle that attaches directly to a concentrate refill pod. The system can be used in most packaged liquid goods, from cleaners to beverages. The packaging dispenses concentrate directly from a refill pod into a measuring cup inside a reusable bottle. The user just has to squeeze the refill pod until the measuring cup is full, turn over and add water. Replenish sell both their own products (99% plant-derived) and work together with other brands to incorporate their refill system to the collaborating brand’s products.

几十年以来，我们一直在以一种线性模式去使用洗涤剂和其他液体产品，这就使得大量有价值的材料被不幸填埋，或流入环境成为污染物。Replenish 为普遍存在的洗涤剂瓶增添了更可循环、耐用和节约资源的设计，增加了瓶子的使用次数，来试图逐步解决这个问题。相较于一次性瓶子，这种填充系统可减少80-90%的能源使用、塑料垃圾生产和二氧化碳排放量，并避免不合理的超长距离运水需求。消费者也为这种可减少塑料产品使用的选择而振奋，因为这样不仅可以减少污染，且从长期来看也可以节省花费。

For decades the way we consume detergents and other liquid products has been based on a linear model, resulting in valuable materials being landfilled or leaking into the environment. Replenish 3.0 attempts to address this, by creating a more circular design for the ubiquitous detergent bottle, that is durable, conserving valuable resources allowing the bottle to be reused again and again. The result is a refill system that reduces energy, plastic waste and carbon dioxide emissions by 80-90 percent compared to one-use bottles and avoids the illogical need to transport water over great distances. For the customer it is empowering to be able to make a conscious purchasing choice which reduces their plastic footprint, as well as paying less for the products in the long term.

Full cycle bioplastics — 由食品废弃物制成的包装材料

Full cycle bioplastics, Packaging from food waste

生物塑料全循环公司 Full Cycle Bioplastics、麋鹿包装材料公司 Elk Packaging 及联合标签和包装公司 Associated Labels and Packaging 携手合作，利用可再生材料、农副产品和食品废弃物等制成一种可降解的高性能材料，用于包装各式各样的产品，从燕麦棒、薯片到洗衣粉，均可使用。

Working together, Full Cycle Bioplastics, Elk Packaging, and Associated Labels and Packaging make a compostable high-performance material from renewable materials, agricultural by-products and food waste to pack a broad range of products from granola bars and crisps to laundry detergent.

VTT — 木制“塑料”

‘Plastic’ made from wood

芬兰 VTT 技术研究中心 VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland 利用农林副产品研发出一种可降解的多层材料，可用作包装什锦麦片、坚果、干果和大米等产品的立式食品袋。这些木质副产品富含纤维素——地球上最丰富的可再生聚合物——从而使该新材料成为以化石燃料为原料的多层塑料包装材料的环保替代品。

The VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has created a compostable multi-layer material from agricultural and forestry by-products, which could be used for stand-up food pouches for products like muesli, nuts, dried fruit and rice.

循环经济转型

2016年，艾伦·麦克阿瑟基金会发布了第一份《新塑料经济》报告，在该报告中，一份令人震惊且广为流传的统计数据显示，如果我们不改变生产和使用塑料制品的方式，到2050年，海洋中塑料的重量可能会超过鱼类。去年，BBC系列纪录片《蓝色星球2》将这种担忧直观地呈现在观众眼前，再度引发公众对塑料问题的高度关注。

《新塑料经济》系列报告呼吁，要根据循环经济的原则来重新设计塑料体系，而这种转变需要人们改变原有的思维方式。

因为，尽管我们做出了极大的努力，但作为一个社会，我们在“塑料问题”上并未取得重大进展。回收标志已推出40余年，但实际上，仅有14%的塑料包装得到回收，且其中只有2%得到有效回收。其余部分要么在回收过程中损耗，要么用于价值较低的商品。尽管出发点极其美好，但回收的酸奶罐不太可能再做酸奶罐。

因此，艾伦·麦克阿瑟基金会将目标重新调整为“建立一个新塑料经济，将塑料制品永远不会成为废弃物或流入海洋摆在第一位”。

In 2016, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation released the first New Plastics Economy report, which provided the alarming and widely shared statistic that if we don’t change how we make and use plastic, by 2050 the oceans could contain more plastics than fish, by weight. Viewers of the BBC series Blue Planet 2 saw this concern brought to life last year, resulting in another spike in public attention.

The New Plastics Economy reports have called for a redesign of the plastics system in line with the principles of a circular economy, a shift that will require a change in mindset.

Because try as we might, as a society we haven’t made much progress on the ‘plastics problem’. The recycling symbol has been around for over 40 years, but just 14% of plastic packaging is actually collected, and of that only 2% is properly recycled. The rest is lost during the recycling process, or goes to lower value goods. Despite best intentions, that yoghurt pot you recycled probably won’t be reborn as another yoghurt pot.

So the new goal, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, is “a New Plastics Economy, in which plastics will never become waste or enter the ocean in the first place.”