Since the takeaway waste has become the hotspot, people have focused on how to deal with plastic lunch boxes waste. Because the new Internet plus Food lifestyle is highly accepted, the problem of lunch boxes waste becomes particularly severe. In order to achieve the vision of Green Takeaway, from now on, we need to unit multi forces to break barrier moving forward.
Released by ELE.ME, an online meal ordering platform, the big data of Chinese Takeaway shows that the market has reached 600 million subscribers. In 2016, 60% of the subscribers used the platform more than 3 times per week. A rough estimate from the third party Research Institute, all the online meal ordering platforms can receive nearly 400 million orders every week. That means the Internet plus Food has become a new lifestyle. Let’s see a set of data; if each order needs one plastic bag and one lunch box, it will appear 400 million plastic bags and lunch boxes waste every week. Another public data shows that actually each order needs an average of about 3 disposable plastic products. In that way, every day there will be 60 million the plastic lunch boxes waste.
How long will it take for the plastic waste to degrade naturally? The answer is 400 years. Where is the plastic waste going? Some part is burned and millions are going into the ocean. Is this plastic waste just a cause for future human problems? Surely, it will affect the ecology of the future, but the accumulation of environmental pollution is from now on.
There are all kinds of reasons for the pollution of lunch boxes waste. Firstly is the cost. Local life service as a one hundred million market, the nice and pool suppliers are intermingled. The common plastic tableware, plastic bags and plastic straws are a part of the cost. But, if the suppliers adopt the new degradable products or recycle the used common plastic products, it will increase the operation cost. Second, garbage sorting is not mature. It is undeniable that in recent years we have made great efforts to realize the classification of the waste. And not long ago, in a number of pilot cities the compulsory classification papers have been issued. But, as an issue rooted in history, garbage sorting cannot be done in overnight. And this situation is also limited the disposal of lunch boxes waste. Sometimes, the plastic products will be abandoned together with leftover food.
In addition, the utilization system of renewable resources is not perfect. In the takeaway food industry, the suppliers will not make the recycling and neither the distributors. And the customers won’t classify the lunch boxes waste. That makes the plastic products with no attention. But the reality question is that how will pay for the effort, time, and cost of recycling and processing the plastic products? The lunch boxes have passed through three parties, but none of them is charging on the disposal. The primary cause is the absence of relevant disposal standards and norms. This is not an unexpected answer. Internet plus Food is a new emerging business model. How to coordinate the supervision of each party and build a complete standard system remains to be explored and implemented.
The suggestions from experts, the suppliers should use the degradable plastic products take place the common plastic products to stop the expansion of white pollution in root; and the customers should pay the environmental pollution tax to reflect their responsibility; the online meal ordering platforms should innovate the distribution methods to make the Takeaway industry as environmental friendly. In addition, in order to regulate the conduct of each party, the role of regulation should be strengthened. Except the rules for standard of plastic products and disposal of lunch boxes, the public policy also needs to be improved.
Some people said the allowance is a fast way to motivate customers’ enthusiasm to handle the lunch boxes. But it is not the radical cure. The real radical cure is from all people’s spontaneous motivation. Through many efforts to set up the running order of Takeaway Market to solve the problem of lunch boxes waste in root.
