China in need of better recycling and resources management system, says CSPA
According to statistics reported by China Scrap Plastics Association (CSPA), the country wasted a significant amount of resources and is in need of better recycling systems and resources management.
Plastics waste: Assuming that one ton of petroleum is needed to produce three tons of plastics products, China dumped away 11.4 million tons of plastics products in 2012, which was equivalent to more than two years of crude oil drilled from Huabei oilfield that has an annual capacity of 4.5 million tons.
Water loss: Urban water supply in China has a loss rate of 15%, compared to 5% generally seen in other parts of the world. Excluding normal circumstances, if water leakage in China can be reduced by 10 percentage points, it would mean 5.2 billion cubic meter of water can be saved.
Electricity waste: A recent study in China revealed that the electricity wasted by devices in standby mode at home is 0.36kW per hour. For full year, the electricity consumed was 13.14kW-h. Considering that there are over 200 million families living in cities, the total amount of wasted electricity equals 26 billion kW-h, which was nearly one third of the power supplied by the Three Gorges Dam project.
Food loss: Because of strong market competition, food processors are putting more emphasis on the outlook rather than their actual quality, resulting in over 13 billion catty (1 catty = 2kg) of food loss. The State Administration of Grain estimated that over 70 billion catty of food are wasted in different phrases of storage, transportation and processing, an amount that is enough to support 1.3 billion people for two months.
Paper waste: According to China National Resources Recycling Association (CRRA), 1.8 million tons of paper was wasted in Beijing alone. Assuming that making 1 ton of paper consumes 1.5 ton of wood, 100 meter cube of water, the paper loss in China’s capital represents 2.7 million tons of wood and 180 million cubic meter of water being wasted.
