Disposable Lunch Boxes, From Dining Tables To Plastic Recycling Plants

With the popularity of smartphones and the Internet of Things, take-out services have grown rapidly in recent years.In 2019, the number of disposable meal boxes in China exceeded 40 billion. This year, the use of disposable takeaway boxes will exceed 45 billion due to the epidemic.

Where will the 45 billion boxes go after they leave the table? Most of them are buried deep in nearby landfills or float into the sea with rivers. In order to reduce plastic pollution on a large scale, the recycling of take-out food boxes is imperative.

Currently, 90% of take-out meal boxes are made of polypropylene (PP) rather than disposable foam materials, and most are clear, highly rigid and odorless high-quality polyethylene with high recycling value. As a result, the recycling of disposable meal boxes has received high attention from environmental authorities and plastic recycling manufacturers.

PP take-away box recycling process：

Front end: sorting and recycling -> packaging and transportation

Back-end: washing machine -> sorting machine -> crusher -> granulator -> injection molding finished product

Despite the high recycling value of PP lunch boxes, the fact is that there are still many problems in the value transformation process

●Odors are difficult to remove, and fermentation, oil and spoilage odors from leftover food in meal boxes can cling to the box.

●  Increased difficulty in sorting and cleaning due to contamination of different food materials and increased costs for water and wastewater treatment in recycling plants.

●  While most disposable lunch boxes consist of PP, they also include lids, insulation, plastic film and other components that require advanced sorting staff and consume time.

As takeaways cannot be ignored, in order to address these issues, we would like to make the following points.

For meal box manufacturers, the recycling design of PP take-out meal boxes should be carried out. For example, the interior of the lunch box should be smooth enough so that soup is not easily retained; the same material should be used for the entire lid, box and bowl of the box, and the different materials should be easily distinguishable to reduce the stress of subsequent sorting. Production standards should be standardized across all manufacturers to ensure that polypropylene is of the same nature and color, reducing procurement costs and allowing more money to flow into the recycling process.

For take-out platforms, as take-out industry builders, they should also take greater responsibility for environmental advocacy.

They should use every media in the platform itself, including but not limited to mobile apps, delivery uniforms, city billboards, take-out bags, etc., to emphasize the hazards of plastic pollution and the recycling of meal boxes, guide consumers to participate in the whole process of recycling meal boxes, help them establish the concept of environmental responsibility, and use electronic coupons to cultivate post-meal cleaning boxes.

In addition, the take-out platform should also use its high mobility and strong geographical features to help local municipal environmental protection departments to establish dedicated recycling points for PP meal boxes. It can also use delivery staff to recycle meal boxes and fully incorporate plastic recycling.

For consumers, since they choose to take out, they should be responsible for the environmental impact. Clean up lunch boxes after meals, clean up food waste, and recycle waste separately. Only by doing these two things can we greatly reduce the cleaning and sorting costs of recycling plants and increase the recycling rate of PP.

For businesses that enjoy the benefits of take-out, they should take responsibility for the environment. Businesses should choose the same material and the same type of lunch boxes and not mark them. If you want to write, use water-soluble paint pens, which make it easier to recycle and reduce the production cost of recycling factories.

As can be seen above, the only way to solve the pollution of current lunch boxes is to turn disposable lunch boxes into high-quality PP recycling materials, which requires policy support and cooperation from consumers, recycling plants and government departments.