MCLC: recycling banks

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: recycling banks
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Source: The Guardian
(7/4/12):http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/04/beijing-recyclin
g-banks-subway-bottles

Beijing introduces recycling banks that pay subway credits for bottles
Recycling firm hopes to improve profits by bypassing informal network of
bottle collectors
By Jonathan Watts in Beijing

Beijing's vast army of plastic-bottle scavengers will get an automated
rival later this month, when the city introduces its first reverse vending
machines that pay subway credits in exchange for returned containers.

More than 100 recycle-to-ride devices will be installed in an attempt to
reduce the environmental impact of the informal bottle collection business
and improve the profits of the operator, which works in an industry
thought to be worth billions of dollars.

Donors will receive between 5 fen and 1 mao (about 1p) on their commuter
passes for each polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle they insert into
the machine, which then crushes them to a third of their original size and
sorts them according to colour and type.

"It will be as easy to use as an ATM," said an employee of the operating
company, Incom, who declined to give her name. "We hope to put one at
every station on the route [subway line 10] and later expand to other
lines, bus stops and residential areas."

The firm currently processes 50,000 tons of bottles a year, most of which
it buys from informal collectors who roam the city's streets looking for
discards, which they pack on to carts and bicycles.

With the machines, the firm hopes to collect directly from the public and
generate extra revenue from government subsidies and sales of advertising
shown on the machine's screens. Incom says it plans to approach Coca-Cola
and other beverage retailers.

Similar devices have been used in several countries, including the US,
Japan and Brazil, but they have benefited from civic mindedness,
convenience and widespread ignorance about the true value of PET.

Waste-trade experts are sceptical that the same business model will work
in China, which already has a vast and highly competitive PETrecycling
industry. Nobody knows the numbers of collectors, but estimates range from
500,000 to 20 million. Many go from door to door, or come when called.

Adam Minter, a Shangai-based blogger <http://www.shanghaiscrap.com/> and
author of an upcoming book on China's scrap business, reckons that
recycling may be the second most popular profession in the country after
farming and that the PET market alone is worth billions of dollars.

More significantly, he says the motives are also different, which will
mean the reverse vending machine operators will have to offer competitive
rates or they will struggle to attract takers.

"In the west, recycling is seen as a green activity. In developing Asia,
it is an economic activity," Minter says. "One thing is guaranteed. If
donors are not paid market price, it is not going to work."

A similar device was launched in Shanghai several years ago, but has not
made any noticeable dent in the informal industry.

Incom says, however, that environmental benefits should be considered
alongside economic factors.

While most informal PET recycling workshops re-use the plastic for clothes
and create pollution during their largely unregulated activities, the
company says it makes the cleanest and most efficient use possible of the
plastic for new bottles.

Environmental activists said they would wait to see whether the devices
were energy intensive and waste-producing before passing judgment.

"Using better technology for recycling is a good thing, generally
speaking," said Feng Yongfeng of the Green Beagle NGO. "But bottle
recycling is not an urgent problem in China. We already have a mature
system for that. Our real need is to complete a comprehensive recycling
system."