Plastics Engineering - May 2014 - (Page 26)

GLOBAL LOOK Green Cultivation with Biodegradable Plastic Mulch ____________ The biodegraded state of Ecomann's mulch film after 180 days in composting conditions. will take a rather long process for chinese farmers to shift from traditional mulch film to biodegradable alternatives. Europe's successful experience tells us that a favorable policy is important in promoting the use of biodegradable plastics, since they are more costly than polyolefin plastics. as biodegradable mulch film is three to five times more expensive than its conventional counterpart, neither the industry nor farmers can afford it in the short term, and that is why policy support is needed. the beneficiaries should include bio-based materials and fully biodegradable materials suppliers by means of valueadded tax refunds, tax reduction, and procurement for use in key projects, etc. if policy support is put in place, the biodegradable plastics market in china will expand quickly. How big is the potential of degradable mulch film market in china? as mentioned above, plastic mulch consumption is growing at an average rate of 10% annually and exceeds 1 million tons nowadays. Based on these figures, the market value generated from the consumption of conventional mulch film reaches rMB 10 billion to rMB 20 billion per year. if all traditional mulch film is replaced by degradable ones, the value will be approximately rMB 20 billion to rMB 30 billion per year. at the national People's congress and chinese People's Political consultative conference sessions 2013, Yuan Zhimin, chairman of the board of Kingfa scientific and technological 26 co. ltd. (and also a member of the chinese national People's congress), put forward the use of biodegradable mulch film to reduce "white pollution" in china's farmland. His proposal received widespread recognition, driven by Hu chunhua, the communist Party secretary of guangdong province, and che Jun, the communist Party committee secretary for Xinjiang Production and construction corps (XPcc). Kingfa began field tests of biodegradable mulch film with XPcc. the results were encouraging. Kingfa/XPCC Cooperation Based on the success of these tests in 2013, Kingfa and XPcc will begin in-depth cooperation for test and demonstration planting with biodegradable mulch film across the entire Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region in 2014. representatives of the XPcc signed a three-year agreement with Kingfa. the 14 divisions of XPcc will apply biodegradable plastic mulch on 140,000 mu (9300 hectares) of farmland in 2014, and expanding to 6 million mu (400,000 hectares) in 2016. Mulch film is one of the many r&D focuses of biodegradable plastics at Kingfa. as Europe is the earliest region to establish related laws, policies, and industry standards for biodegradable plastics, the company first piloted its biodegradable plastic agricultural film promotion, among other biodegradable plastic products, in Europe. | Plastics EnginEEring | MaY 2014 | www.4spe.org | www.plasticsengineering.org http://www.4spe.org http://www.plasticsengineering.org

Plastics Engineering - May 2014

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