Where Did The Old Appliances Go After The Replacement? Let's Take A Look At The 'fantasy Drift' Of Discarded Household Appliances
Recently, our city issued the "Love Chongqing" Consumer Goods Exchange for New Implementation Plan, which details and implements specific local policies and measures, and comprehensively promotes the exchange of old for new consumer goods. Under the stimulus of real gold and silver subsidies, there will be a trend of exchanging old for new consumer goods.
According to third-party statistics, the current household appliance inventory in Chongqing exceeds 100 million units, with approximately 4 million units scrapped annually. At the same time, according to the goals of the Implementation Plan, we strive to increase the recycling volume of waste household appliances by more than 15% compared to 2023 by 2025; By 2027, the recycling volume of waste household appliances will increase by more than 30% compared to 2023, and the average annual renewal of household appliances in the city will exceed 4 million units.
So, where will the old appliances go after being replaced? Come and follow the reporter along the various stages of recycling and reusing old goods, and experience the "fantasy drift" of this waste household appliance.
Recycling nearly 3000 waste appliances per month, with a business volume growth of over 30%
At a recycling service station in the airport of Yubei District, Chongqing, there are old household appliances such as refrigerators, televisions, and computer consoles. The staff, Xu Te, is busy sorting and arranging them for loading. During this period, the station's business volume has increased by more than 30%.
"Our site covers an area of about 2000 square meters. Since mid April, we have received around 100 units of waste appliances every day, and nearly 3000 units of waste appliances in a month. Xu Te told reporters that in the past, customers were mainly retail investors, and most of the recycled appliances were discarded by residents or nearby businesses. After the comprehensive promotion of the policy of replacing old appliances with new ones, electrical appliance malls and stores have become the main sources of waste appliances.".
▲Waste televisions collected from the site. Provided by the interviewed unit
Xu Te has been engaged in recycling work for nearly ten years, and has also done mobile recycling. However, the source of recycled goods is unstable. In comparison, the "old for new" recycling channel relies on the company's platform operation, with clear areas, clear responsibilities, and a guaranteed amount of recycled goods.
Don't just look at recycling waste, there is also a lot of knowledge behind it. "The value of household appliances is somewhat related to internal components such as compressors, hard drives, and electronic components. At first, I didn't understand it, but I recycled a lot. The company also regularly trained and gradually became familiar with waste household appliances." Xu Te said, for example, the components of TV screens have more regenerative value than the casing; After deep processing, copper materials will generate coarse copper blocks or be finely processed into copper bars, copper plates, and copper strips, entering the industrial field.
"If the recycled household appliances are not too old and need to be refurbished, they can be sold directly in the second-hand market. If they are not suitable for such treatment, they need to be dismantled and recycled into the factory." Xu Te told reporters that regardless of whether they flow through the second-hand market or not, the ultimate destination of waste household appliances is mostly towards environmentally friendly dismantling.
Part of the parts can be turned into treasure, with a dismantling efficiency of up to 150 units per hour
The reporter walked into the factory area of Chongqing Zhongtian Electronic Waste Treatment Co., Ltd. located in the Circular Economy Industrial Park of Shuangqiao Economic Development Zone, and saw rows of waste televisions. After being inspected by staff, they were placed on the conveyor belt of the disposal production line.
After dismantling the power cord, removing the back cover, cleaning the inside of the machine, releasing the vacuum from the CRT (cathode ray tube), and removing the circuit board... After 13 steps of disassembly, a discarded TV is divided into dozens of separate components such as the power cord, circuit board, high-voltage cap, speaker, and wires. The dismantled materials such as copper, aluminum, plastic, and rare precious metals will be classified and sold to enterprises with demand, while the other part will be sent to professional disposal units for processing.
▲In the factory area of Chongqing Zhongtian Electronic Waste Treatment Co., Ltd., staff are dismantling used televisions. Provided by the interviewed unit
It is understood that 5000 to 6000 discarded electrical and electronic products are processed here every day. "We mainly dismantle and comprehensively utilize waste televisions, refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, computers, etc. In 2023, we recycled 1.83 million sets of second-hand appliances, dismantled 1.8 million sets, and produced a value of 430 million yuan, an increase of 11% compared to last year." said Zhang Bing, General Manager of Chongqing Zhongtian Electronic Waste Treatment Co., Ltd.
"One of the most important steps in the dismantling process is quality inspection. We use a 'single weighing barcode pasting' method, where each electrical appliance corresponds to a barcode, indicating the name, specifications, model, weight, and other information of the appliance. Using barcodes, the appliance can be effectively traced during subsequent storage and dismantling processes." Zhang Bing introduced that there are currently five production lines in the workshop, corresponding to air conditioning, washing machines, CRT TVs, LCD TVs, and refrigerator dismantling lines. Mainly by combining manual and mechanical disassembly, the electrical appliances are divided into various components and then classified for collection. The efficiency of each production line can reach about 150 units per hour.
"Abandoned electrical and electronic products are typical solid waste that combines resource and pollution. Proper recycling and treatment can unleash high resource value." Zhang Bing said that through resource recycling, the number of times new metals are extracted from ores can be reduced, which not only saves natural resources but also reduces costs, achieving more with one action.
Breaking through industry bottlenecks is expected to drive consumption in the trade in market to exceed 30 billion yuan
Peng Heliang, member of the Party Group and Deputy Director of the Municipal Commission of Commerce, stated that household appliance consumption has always been an important component of household consumption. With the acceleration of urbanization, household appliance consumption has gradually entered an era where both increment and stock are equally important, and the market space for exchanging old for new key consumer goods is huge.
According to preliminary calculations, in 2024, our city will invest over 240 million yuan in the exchange of old for new household appliances, automobiles, and home decoration, kitchen and bathroom consumer goods. It is expected to drive the investment of 300 million yuan in districts and counties, and the cumulative investment of various enterprises, financial institutions, and platforms will exceed 1.5 billion yuan. This will form a policy scale of over 2 billion yuan for the exchange of old for new, which can drive market consumption to exceed 30 billion yuan and achieve a 1:15 policy amplification effect.
In the view of Mo Yuanming, a researcher at the Chengdu Chongqing Economic Circle Collaborative Development Center of Chongqing University of Business and Technology, promoting large-scale equipment updates and exchanging old for new consumer goods is an objective requirement for cultivating and developing new productive forces, as well as an inevitable choice for industrial transformation and upgrading.
"The current market space for trade in is huge, and the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain are facing some opportunities, such as promoting industrial upgrading and transformation, unleashing investment and consumption potential, driving related investment, effectively driving and expanding domestic demand, promoting energy conservation and carbon reduction, and eliminating outdated production capacity. Due to increased investment in new technologies and equipment, new products are launched into the market, bringing direct benefits to production and processing parties; consumers also gain new consumption experiences." Mo Yuanming said.
Mo Yuanming believes that there are still "bottlenecks" in the current waste recycling industry, such as a lack of top-level design for resource recycling and recycling, a lack of practical guidelines and standards, incomplete implementation of green and low-carbon consumption policies, and generally small enterprise scale in the waste recycling industry.
In this regard, he suggested that we must focus on cultivating and developing new quality productive forces, optimize policy regulation, strengthen collaborative innovation between the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, promote industrial agglomeration, accelerate the construction of a comprehensive, efficient, standardized and orderly waste recycling system, and promote the high-quality development of the waste recycling industry.
