In recent years, domestic and foreign consumers have increasingly high requirements for the safety and environmental performance of kitchen utensils, and a revolution in "environmentally friendly materials" is quietly emerging in the plastic daily necessities industry in Taizhou. Taizhou, known as the "Kingdom of Plastic Products," has a national market share of 60% for plastic daily necessities.

With the increasing cost of raw materials and labor year by year and the continuous rise of the RMB exchange rate, the export of plastic tableware and kitchenware from Taizhou has been able to maintain a growth rate of over 20% for four consecutive years. In 2012, the export volume reached 350 million US dollars, ranking among the top among major production areas in China. Recently, we walked into plastic export enterprises in Taizhou and listened to them talk about the "business experience" of technological innovation driving the transformation of the plastic industry.

Initiate a material revolution

Du Fu once praised bamboo with a line of poetry that reads "Rain washes away the delicate fragrance, and the wind blows the delicate fragrance." For a long time, bamboo has been a gentleman in the hearts of Chinese literati and literati; Today, bamboo has become an environmentally friendly, safe, and biodegradable raw material for kitchen utensils, taken from nature and returning to nature.

At the Canton Fair in May this year, Taizhou Huangyan Xinlianhe Plastic Products Co., Ltd.'s newly developed bamboo fiber stainless steel insulation cups and more than 20 other products shone brilliantly. In the words of the company's general manager Huang Keliang, they not only attracted attention but also obtained orders, very successful

In 2009, Xinlianhe first attempted to produce tableware using bamboo fiber, a new biodegradable and environmentally friendly material. At that time, the first generation of products could only be made into simple tray type containers with a single color, which was difficult to satisfy customers. More importantly, the technical problem of product shrinkage and deformation remained unresolved. Huang Keliang recalled, "The first generation of products suffered a terrible loss, with cars burning down. That Spring Festival, we stayed at the factory to study the material ratio

Poor technology is a prominent problem that troubles private small and medium-sized enterprises. After learning about the situation, the Zhejiang Taizhou Inspection and Quarantine Bureau guided enterprises to learn from the production process of bamboo powder flower pots, implement technical improvements, and promptly send the sampled products to the laboratory for testing. After more than two months of effort, the problem of high moisture content and easy deformation of bamboo powder was overcome, effectively reducing the scrap rate of the product. The following year, the product passed the FDA food inspection in the United States and the LFGB food safety inspection in the European Union.

After experiencing the pain of destroying the entire vehicle after the failure of the first generation product, and also experiencing the joy of the fifth generation product Xiaoao Canton Fair, Xinlianhe's bamboo fiber tableware research and development path has become smoother, successfully achieving the transformation from traditional melamine tableware to new environmentally friendly tableware.

What is the market response of this new environmentally friendly material? Huang Keliang said with emotion, "We have been running the factory for 10 years and have never received more than 9 million orders before. Last year, we received a 9 million order, which shows the popularity of bamboo fiber products

In the first five months of this year, Xinlian and bamboo fiber tableware exports were booming, with a total of 92 batches exported with a value of 2.6752 million US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 24.3% and 51.3%, respectively. The proportion of exports to total exports increased from 47.8% in 2012 to 71.9% in 2013.

Promote "machine replacement"

At present, the spark of mechanization has become a burning fire among disposable plastic tableware enterprises in Taizhou.

Since the international financial crisis, labor costs alone have increased by ****, and now the annual increase is over 10%. Jinxing Industry and Trade Co., Ltd. is a plastic enterprise specializing in the production of disposable knives, forks, and spoons. General Manager Lin Wenjin told us, "In 2009, there was a 'recruitment difficulty', so we tried to install robots." That year, the factory invested more than 1 million yuan and installed more than 20 robots.

Upon entering the production workshop, the "big block" you will encounter is the "central integrated feeding system" developed by the factory for 5 years. It can simultaneously inject raw materials into 20 machines through pipelines. After the injection molding machine processes the raw materials, a robotic arm about two meters high will take out the product and place it on the packaging platform, with an average of 13 seconds for each retrieval and placement action.

Now, our raw material class only needs a dozen people. Originally, we needed over forty people, and based on an average of 40000 yuan per person per year, 10 people could save 400000 yuan. "Lin Wenjin told us that the cost of equipping the equipment had already been recovered, and more importantly," machine replacement "greatly helped to ensure product consistency and quality stability.

At another disposable plastic tableware production enterprise, Taizhou Yichi Industry and Trade Co., Ltd., in addition to the central integrated feeding system and robotic arm, we found that the production workshop also added two long conveyor belts, connecting each production equipment like a highway, and transporting the products to the packaging area in a centralized manner, eliminating manual handling time.

According to General Manager Liang Zhi, the production capacity has increased by 60% to **** in recent years, thanks not only to the role of the robotic arm but also to the technological innovation, mainly the use of hot runner molds.

Both Jinxing Industry and Trade and Yichi Industry and Trade pay close attention to the new technological trends in the industry. At the Asia Pacific Rubber and Plastic Exhibition, the second largest industry exhibition in the world, the latest technologies such as "simulated labeling" and "rapid mold changing" attracted Liang Zhi's attention; And Lin Wenjin is also actively contacting foreign customers and visiting equipment at exhibitions in Japan, hoping to find machines with higher production capacity and faster speed. Their next goal is to achieve mechanization of the packaging process as soon as possible.

Running towards the Highland of Dreams

After 8 years of persistent exploration and a cumulative investment of 15 million yuan, it is only for the development of new environmentally friendly polylactic acid tableware. For an ordinary private enterprise, this perseverance is particularly precious.

At Zhejiang Xiangguang New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., General Manager Fang Yong picked up a peach red polylactic acid salad bowl and told us, "This bowl can be completely degraded in a natural environment in just 6 months, and its profit is three times that of ordinary kitchen utensils.

Traditional petroleum based plastic materials such as PP, PC, and melamine all have safety hazards such as plasticizers and bisphenol A. In recent years, the European Union and other countries have increasingly strict testing standards for these types of kitchen utensils, and even directly prohibit them. Fang Yong told us that "the toxic substances detected in polylactic acid are all zero or negative, making it an absolutely safe material." However, he reluctantly stated, "We are the earliest and most comprehensive products in the industry to produce polylactic acid tableware. Unfortunately, customers see this new product more and buy less, and the order is relatively small, but we will not give up

What supports this persistence is an ideal. Speaking of this ideal, Fang Yong is somewhat excited: "China rarely stands at the forefront of the world in any field. Polylactic acid materials are among the world's leading, and if downstream enterprises can use this material well, they can also stand at the forefront

Only by standing on the high ground can one have pricing power. Without pricing power, it is a pain in the hearts of Fang Yong's factory and even millions of small and medium-sized enterprises in China. "My biggest expectation is to have a turnaround through polylactic acid tableware, change the way we trade with foreign businesses, and ask him to be my seller abroad, with the price set by me

The path of innovation is full of twists and turns. In order to support export enterprises, the Taizhou Bureau fully utilizes its information and technological advantages to help enterprises analyze the properties of new materials and potential risks in the production process. Regarding the categories of new materials such as bamboo powder, polylactic acid (PLA), PBT polyester, and their additives used, the authorization status and limit requirements for such substances in the EU authorized substance list are compared, providing technical support for their further entry into the EU market, Eliminate the economic losses caused by blind development and production.