The world is waking up to the importance of sustainability, and the home appliance industry is no exception. Gone are the days of bulky, energy-guzzling appliances. The future is sleek, efficient, and eco-friendly, and recycled plastics are playing a starring role in this transformation.
A Greener Future for Appliances:
The home appliance industry is undergoing a major shift, moving towards lighter, more sustainable designs. Recycled plastics are emerging as a key player in this revolution, offering a way to reduce waste, conserve resources, and create innovative products. From refrigerators to washing machines, TVs to air conditioners, recycled plastics are making their mark on the appliances we use every day.
The Rise of Recycled Plastics:
The global market for recycled thermoplastics is booming, projected to reach a staggering $104.76 billion by 2026. This surge in demand is driven by a growing awareness of the environmental impact of plastic waste and a desire to create a more sustainable future. Governments around the world are supporting this trend with policies and regulations that promote the use of recycled plastics.
Major Players Step Up:
Leading home appliance manufacturers are embracing the use of recycled plastics, recognizing its environmental benefits and its potential to create innovative and cost-effective products. Companies like Haier, TCL, Gree, Midea, Changhong, and Hisense are actively investing in research and development, creating recycling platforms, and incorporating recycled plastics into their product lines.
The Benefits of Recycled Plastics:
The use of recycled plastics in home appliances offers a range of advantages:
- Environmental Sustainability: Recycling plastics reduces the need to extract new resources, minimizing our impact on the environment.
- Cost Savings: Using recycled plastics can be more cost-effective than using virgin materials, making products more affordable for consumers.
- Innovation: Recycled plastics can be used to create innovative and lightweight designs, making appliances more efficient and energy-saving.
The Future is Circular:
The home appliance industry is embracing a circular economy model, where materials are reused and recycled, minimizing waste and maximizing resource efficiency. This shift is driven by a growing awareness of the need to protect our planet and a desire to create a more sustainable future for generations to come.
A Sustainable Future for Appliances
The use of recycled plastics in home appliances is a win-win situation, benefiting both the environment and consumers. By embracing this trend, the home appliance industry is taking a significant step towards a more sustainable future, creating innovative products that are better for the planet and better for our wallets.
At the start of 2024, the home appliance industry has moved towards lightweight, environmentally friendly and healthy development, a trend that is driving the development and application of new recycled plastics. For example, TCL Huaxing launched a 23.8-inch display module with 51.5 per cent recycled material content signalling the growing importance of recycled plastics in home appliances. Global industries have committed to expanding the use of recycled plastics, with home appliances accounting for as much as 37 per cent of applications, significantly more than any other industry. the FIORMARKETS report predicts that the global market value of recycled thermoplastics will reach $104.76 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 9.98 per cent.
As an important initiative to promote sustainable development, the utilisation of recycled plastics is supported by domestic and international policies and regulations. For example, the Action Programme for Traction of Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Replacement by Standard Enhancement, jointly issued by the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration and other seven departments, clearly proposes to increase the requirements for the use of recycled plastics in the standards for home appliances, in order to promote closed-loop utilisation of waste plastics. Meanwhile, regions or countries such as the European Union and the United States have also frequently introduced decrees on plastic recycling in recent years.
Which plastics in commonly used household appliances can be recycled?
Refrigerators
Currently, among home appliances, refrigerators have the greatest demand for plastic raw materials, with an average of 30~50% or even more of plastics per refrigerator, of which PS, polyurethane, ABS and PP account for a significant portion.
Washing machine
Washing machine is also one of the household appliances that use more plastic parts, mainly including the inner tube, base, wave wheel, etc. A double-tank washing machine uses about 7-12kg of plastic, and the fully automatic washing machine can reach up to 20kg, accounting for about 30% of the total weight of the washing machine. Among them, the most used is the general-purpose plastic PP, engineering plastics with more POM, PA and ABS.
Air Conditioner
Air conditioners are generally divided into two parts: the indoor unit and the outdoor unit. The plastics used in the indoor unit account for more than 30% of the total weight, of which the most widely used are ABS and HIPS. the air filter is made of PP fibres woven around a PP holder, and the drainpipe is extruded from soft PVC. Outdoor unit housings have gradually been made of plastic instead of steel, with air intake windows and control panels prepared in HIPS, cross-flow fan parts in glass fibre reinforced ABS, and outdoor unit housings currently prepared in weatherproof PP.
Television
Television plastic are: ABS, polyamide, polyformaldehyde, modified polyphenylene ether, polycarbonate, PET, PBT, mainly used for television housings, knobs, dials, lenses, coil skeleton, transformer control shafts, winding tubes, insulating bushings and so on. Television casing using flame retardant grade ABS or HIPS, ABS mostly, China also uses modified polyphenylene ether, but the price is higher.
Notebook computer
As the shell of the notebook plays a role in heat dissipation and protection of zero devices inside the machine, compared to other traditional home appliances for the material requirements are more demanding. Mainstream notebook shell materials include the following categories: ABS engineering plastics, modified PC, magnesium aluminium alloy, titanium alloy, carbon fibre.
Standards, according to T / CHEAA 0034-2024 ‘household appliances in the use of recycled plastics technical specifications’, the use of recycled plastics production of parts performance should be consistent with the use of virgin plastics production of parts performance or similar, and the colour must be the same colour or similar colour system, not allowed to mix with other colours of plastics, the difference in its colour and the black point should be in line with the requirements of the table.
Trade-in surged by more than 80%, the recovery and recycling system to step up construction
In the first half of this year, the State Council issued the Action Programme for Promoting Large-scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-in. The programme specifies 20 key tasks in five areas, one is the implementation of equipment renewal action, the second is the implementation of consumer goods trade-in action, the third is the implementation of recovery and recycling action, the fourth is the implementation of standards enhancement action, and the fifth is to strengthen policy protection.
From January to May this year, the major e-commerce platform home appliance trade-in sales increased by more than 80%, and trade-in has become an important factor in promoting the growth of home appliance consumption. At the same time, a large number of new intelligent community recycling facilities have been added around the world, and the recovery and recycling system has become more robust. In addition, major home appliance manufacturers have entered the recycled plastics, including Haier, TCL, Gree, Midea, Changhong, Hisense and so on.
Home appliance makers get into plastic recycling
Haier
The First Green Recycling Demonstration Connected Factory
Haier has built the industry’s first green recycling demonstration interconnected factory, introducing the industry’s most advanced high-quality plastics cleaning and sorting production line and recycled new material production line, the output of recycled new material purity of up to 99.9% (comparable to virgin materials), physical properties of nearly 0 decay, and in September 2022, put into production and operation. The first phase of the plant can dismantle 2 million units/year of used home appliances and regenerate 30,000 tonnes of recycled materials. Haier recycling industry not only customises the intelligent dismantling line body to increase the dismantling efficiency by 30%, but more importantly regenerates the dismantled materials into recycled new materials that can be reused to achieve high-value applications in automotive, home appliances, daily chemicals and other fields.
On the recycling side, Haier Zhijia innovates the ‘five-network fusion’ model of marketing network, service network, logistics network, recycling network and channel network, organically combining online and offline, and constructing a nationwide recycling network system for used home appliances. Online, the Haier Smart Home APP, official website, WeChat public number and other open recycling channels, so that users report recycling and trade-in demand more convenient; offline, the integration of 32,000 offline shops, more than 100 logistics and distribution centres, recycling network covering more than 2,800 counties and cities across the country.
In the cleaning production line, Haier Zhijia has laid out 16 processes, relying on advanced cleaning equipment such as the recycled plastic pre-treatment system, multiple washing sorting system and four kettle parallel hot washing system, and adopting the efficient cleaning process combination of ‘clean water washing + salt water washing + friction washing + hot water washing + steam washing’, which solves the problems of the products such as the black spots, impurities and odour to the maximum extent, impurities and odour in the products.
Focusing on the application of recycled materials, green material innovation, recycled new material research and other dimensions of exploration, we continue to innovate multi-scenario recycled applications for household appliances, automobiles, home furnishings, household chemicals, and food-grade applications, and have launched four series of products, namely, recycled standard-grade sheet materials, recycled standard-grade base materials, recycled standard-grade new materials, and recycled custom-modified materials.
TCL
Established Aobo, specialising in the recycling and treatment of used home appliances.
Recycling is very important as the front-end support of trade-in. At the recycling end, consumers in China still mainly rely on offline recycling stations and mobile recycling points. Therefore, whether the door-to-door recycling, who to recycle, directly related to the consumer experience of the consumer trade-in.
As early as 2009, TCL vigorously implement the extended producer responsibility system, set up a TCL Aobo company in Tianjin, specializing in the recycling of waste household appliances, with an annual processing capacity of 200,000 tonnes of waste electrical and electronic products and 100,000 tonnes of recycled plastics processing and utilization. June 9 this year, TCL Aobo’s new production line to complete the commissioning, began trial production, the new production line can be further appliance plastic debris processing into 3mm × 2.5mm size of plastic particles, more profitable, the new production line is expected to put into use, the annual production capacity can reach 30,000 tonnes.
Recently, TCL and Jinfa Technology Co., Ltd. also held a ‘TCL – Jinfa New Materials Joint Innovation Centre’ inauguration ceremony. Relying on this platform, the two sides will carry out in-depth co-operation in the ice washing products for the regular application of modified materials, green materials research and application, no spray aesthetic plastic special, polymer materials, basic research, materials recycling, personnel training, joint project declaration and other directions.
Gree
Independently builds recycling platform and establishes recycled plastic joint venture
Gree has 30 regional sales companies and over 30,000 offline outlets. Through self-built waste home appliance recycling channels, it carries out full-category waste home appliance recycling work for consumers, and centrally processes through Gree Green Recycling Resources Co., Ltd., realizing smooth circulation of the recycling process.
In addition to independently building a recycling platform, Gree Green Recycling Resources uses a complete range of waste home appliance green resource processing technology to recycle and process various types of urban solid waste, and recycles more than 390,000 tons of various types of recycled resources annually, helping to achieve the dual carbon goals with high quality. Since 2010, Gree Electric has successively established six large recycling resource environmental protection processing plants in Zhuhai, Changsha, Zhengzhou, Shijiazhuang, Wuhu and Tianjin, with a total investment of over 2 billion yuan.
On April 11 this year, Zhuhai Gree Green Recycling Resources Co., Ltd. under Gree Electric Appliances and Faurecia (China) Investment Co., Ltd. under Faurecia Group signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in Wuhu, Anhui. The two parties will establish a joint venture by the end of 2024 to jointly develop, manufacture and sell recycled plastics, and strive to create first-class sustainable material products, achieve a sales target of 150,000 tons of compounds by 2030, create sustainable solutions for the automotive, home appliances and other industries, and enable the development of a green circular economy.
Today, Gree has established a complete and mature home appliance recycling system with advanced resource processing equipment and strong technical strength. By the end of 2022, Gree Recycling Resources Company has processed more than 47 million units (sets) of various types of waste electrical and electronic products. It is estimated that it can reduce the mining of mineral crude oil resources by about 1.8 million tons, save about 4.39 million cubic meters of water, and reduce carbon emissions by about 2.25 million tons, effectively avoiding the harm caused by waste electrical appliances to the environment.
Midea
Building a full-link digital green recycling system
In order to achieve efficient green recycling and promote the recycling of resources, Midea actively builds a full-link digital green recycling system, which promotes the efficient recycling of resources and plays a demonstration role in the further development of the industry. With the support of 76,000 retail terminals and 200,000+ service engineers, Midea uses the dual-wheel drive of offline and online platforms and builds the only full-link digital green recycling system in the industry with Internet+ as the cornerstone.
Midea’s green recycling is not limited to a certain brand or category of home appliances, but can meet the recycling needs of 11 major categories and 200+ subcategories, truly realizing cross-category green recycling. Recycled home appliances will be disassembled and classified with high precision and intelligence in accordance with the highest national standards of disassembly process, renewable material resources will be recycled, and users can also monitor the recycling process at any time to complete the closed loop of home appliance recycling.
On March 14, 2024, Jiangxi Green Recycling Industry Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of GEM Group, and Ningbo Meimei Home Appliance Service Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of global technology company Midea, signed the “Midea China Regional User Service Green Recycling Project Cooperation Agreement”. The two parties reached a cooperation on matters related to the recycling of waste household appliances. The two parties will use their respective outlet services and reverse recycling advantages to jointly promote the development of the green recycling business model of electronic waste.
Changhong
Recycling and disassembly of electrical and electronic equipment and automotive batteries
Changhong relies on its subsidiary Changhong Gerun as the core of the green industrial chain. Through the recycling and disassembly of electrical and electronic equipment and automotive batteries, it has created a closed loop of the green industrial chain. It is understood that Changhong Gerun has not only become the largest electronic and electrical appliance dismantling company in western my country, but also successfully listed on the New Third Board in 2023, and has obtained a more stable cash flow compared to other dismantling companies that rely on subsidies to survive.
At present, Changhong has gradually established a full green industrial chain including R&D, design, procurement, manufacturing, sales, and recycling, forming a relatively complete industrial ecological system layout including upstream core component supply, terminal product manufacturing, and final waste home appliance recycling.
Changhong Gerun relies on platform resources and Changhong’s sales and service channels across the country to establish a communication system with consumers, with waste home appliance recycling companies or individual channel networks as core nodes to support the diversification of resource product recycling. At present, Changhong Gerun has built thousands of recycling outlets across the country, recycling more than 2 million waste electrical and electronic appliances annually, and has dismantled and processed more than 14 million units in total.
Changhong has established an “Internet +” recycling model, using production to establish a big data platform and offline store sales to set up recycling points for home appliances to exchange old for new, opening up the entire chain of waste home appliances from production source to dismantling and disposal.
Hisense
Raw material recovery rate is as high as 92%
In recent years, Hisense has continuously driven new consumer demand through high-quality supply with the support of green technology. Hisense’s self-developed laser TV saves more than 50% energy compared to traditional TVs, and the total recyclable utilization rate of component raw materials has increased to 92%.
In order to facilitate the recycling and replacement of old home appliances, Hisense has built a nationwide recycling system for old home appliances, and has reached cooperation with regular home appliance recycling companies across the country to achieve standardized recycling and disassembly of old home appliances. Through the “Hisense Love Home” system, an Internet + model for home appliance recycling is created to provide users with online evaluation of old machines, subsidy distribution for replacement, purchase of new machines, and one-stop services of “sending new, dismantling old, installing new, and collecting old” to meet consumers’ green recycling and replacement needs for home appliances.
At present, there are more than 130,000 recyclable plastic-related enterprises whose business scope includes “recycling, regeneration, polystyrene (PS), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), low-density polyethylene (LDPE)” and whose status is in operation, continued, moved in, or moved out.
The industry predicts that by 2025, the amount of recycled waste plastics will be around 25 million tons, and the application areas are very broad, including textiles, packaging, electronics, and automobiles. The output value of renewable materials is expected to reach around 100 billion yuan.
Market analysis brief of recycled plastics for household appliances
I. Market overview
The household appliance industry is transforming towards lightweight, environmental protection and health, promoting the research and development and application of recycled plastics.
Global industries have pledged to expand the use of recycled plastics, with applications in the household appliance field accounting for as much as 37%.
It is estimated that by 2026, the global market value of recycled thermoplastics will reach US$104.76 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 9.98%.
Domestic and foreign policies and regulations support the use of recycled plastics, such as China’s “Action Plan for Improving Traction Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Replacement with Standards”, and relevant laws and regulations of the European Union and the United States.
II. Types of recyclable household appliance plastics
Refrigerators: Plastics account for as much as 30~50% or even more, mainly using PS, polyurethane, ABS and PP.
Washing machines: Plastics account for about 30%, mainly using PP, POM, PA and ABS.
Air conditioners: Indoor units account for more than 30% of plastics, mainly using ABS and HIPS; outdoor unit housings gradually use weather-resistant PP instead of steel plates.
Televisions: Mainly use ABS, HIPS, polyamide, polyoxymethylene, modified polyphenylene ether, polycarbonate, PET, PBT, etc.
Laptops: The shell mainly uses ABS engineering plastics, modified PC, magnesium-aluminum alloy, titanium alloy, carbon fiber, etc.
III. Standards and specifications
T/CHEAA 0034-2024 “Technical Specifications for the Use of Recycled Plastics in Household Appliances” stipulates that the performance of recycled plastic parts should be consistent or similar to that of virgin plastic parts, and the color must be the same color system or a similar color system.
IV. Construction of a system for trade-in and recycling
In the first half of 2024, the State Council issued the “Action Plan for Promoting Large-Scale Equipment Renewal and Trade-in of Consumer Goods” to promote trade-in and recycling.
From January to May, the sales of trade-in of home appliances on major e-commerce platforms increased by more than 80%.
New intelligent community recycling facilities have been added in various places, and the recycling and recycling system has become more sound.
V. Major home appliance manufacturers enter the recycled plastics market
Haier: Create the industry’s first green recycling demonstration interconnected factory, realize the recycling of recycled materials, and build a nationwide network system for recycling used home appliances.
TCL: Establish Aobo Company to specialize in recycling and processing used home appliances, and cooperate with Kingfa Technology to carry out new material research and development and recycling.
Gree: Independently build a recycling platform, establish a recycled plastics joint venture, and establish six large recycled resources environmental protection processing factories.
Midea: Build a full-link digital green recycling system to achieve cross-category recycling and high-precision intelligent disassembly and classification.
Changhong: Relying on Changhong Gerun to create a closed loop of the green industrial chain, establish an “Internet +” recycling model, and open up the entire recycling chain of used home appliances.
Hisense: Independently develop laser TVs, increase the total recyclable utilization rate of component raw materials to 92%, and build a nationwide recycling system for used home appliances.
VI. Market size and development trends
Currently, there are more than 130,000 recyclable plastic-related companies in China.
It is estimated that by 2025, China’s waste plastic recycling will reach about 25 million tons, and the output value of renewable materials will reach 100 billion yuan.
Recycled plastics are widely used in textiles, packaging, electronics, automobiles and other fields.
VII. Conclusion
The recycled plastics market in the home appliance industry has great potential, and policy support, technological progress and active participation of enterprises have promoted the rapid development of the market. As the concept of circular economy has become popular, recycled plastics will play an increasingly important role in the sustainable development of the home appliance industry.