Chinaplas-Review
Chinaplas-Review Chinaplas 2018 The rainy weather in Shanghai seemed not to have affected the number of visits to Chinaplas 2018 which was moved to the National Exhibition and Convention Centre, Hongqiao, Shanghai for the first time. The National Exhibition and Convention Centre is located about 1.5 km from Hongqiao Airport and 60 km from Pudong Airport. It is close to the Hongqiao highspeed train HUB, just a 10 minutes walk away. Metro lines 2, 17 and 23 stop there, and were highly suggested as they are the most convenient way to get to Chinaplas 2018 because of the heavy street traffic in Shanghai. The design of National Exhibition and Convention Centre is like a Shamrock grass leaf with three office buildings and a 5 star hotel at the four leaf tips. The complex offers over 400,000 m² indoor exhibition space including 13 halls with 28,800 m² each and 3 halls with 10,00 m² each. An additional 100,000 m² outdoor exhibition space completes the centre. From 24 th April to 27 th April 2018, Chinaplas saw a record breaking attendance of 180,701 visitors which shows a 21.6 % increase compared to 2016 and 16.4 % compared to 2017. On the second day alone Chinaplas had 64,385 visitors, which is as many as NPE (Orlando/USA) two weeks later saw over 5 days. At Chinaplas 2018, two new special zones, 3D technology zone and TPE rubber zone were introduced in addition to the existing 16 zones. In the Bioplastics zone a total of 38 exhibitors, consisting of resins manufacturers, compounders and products converters showed their products and services. bioplastics MAGAZINE talked with most of the Chinese exhibitors and found that the local market accounts only for less than 10 % of their total sales volume. Insider pointed out that a lack of an efficient waste classification system and missing anaerobic organic waste biodegradation systems result in a lack of value for biodegradable products in a circular economic system. According to China Bioplastics Alliance, a first breakthrough for biodegradable plastics applications would be agricultural mulch films. Although according to the latest legalization the use of any plastic mulch film less than 12 µm thickness is forbidden, so that farmers can re-collect PE mulch film after harvest. However, according to local experts, the Chinese government is well aware about the comparative advantages of biodegradable mulch films. Every province has accumulated biodegradable mulch film trial data over the last 10 years. There seem to be no functional issues. The biggest obstacle seems to be the cost factor. China Bioplastics Alliance are studying different ways to reduce cost to an acceptable level including building a large scale factory in Northwest China where natural gas is available to produce BDO and subsequently PBAT. One of the most interesting visitors at the booth of bioplastics MAGAZINE was a company from Tibet. They have been involved in water treatment in Tibet and are now looking for a partner to introduce anaerobic organic waste digestion systems to Tibet. They claimed that Tibet may be the most suitable place to adopt anaerobic digestion of organic waste because of the following reasons: Tibet’s regional spirit is back to nature. According to the Tibetan faith, celestial burial is performed by letting animals eat dead bodies. Tibetan people incinerate combustible waste for heating purposes in winter. Therefore their concept of waste classification is much better than in most parts of the People’s Republic of China. Tibet is a minority area. It is therefore expected that government will spend much more resources in environmental protection. www.chinaplasonline.com By: John Leung, Biosolutions 24 bioplastics MAGAZINE [03/18] Vol. 13
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