What tricks can Shanghai play?, The garbage at the end is only for visiting a "garbage factory", they travel thousands of miles to utilize the garbage at the end
Some people say that the real driving force behind garbage classification lies at the end, as long as the benefits of garbage resource utilization are high enough, changes in the starting point will naturally occur.
But "benefits" are difficult to calculate. As a public good, the final disposal of garbage is not only a complex process, but also has relatively limited returns. So, under the goal of "zero waste city", how should waste terminal disposal enterprises balance public welfare and development? What new explorations do they have in terms of conversion efficiency?
The reporter conducted on-site visits to the Songjiang Tianma Waste Free Low Carbon Environmental Protection Industrial Park and the Shanghai Laogang Ecological Environmental Protection Base, attempting to reveal the effectiveness and difficulties of waste end treatment, and discovering the potential and driving force of the normalization of a "circular economy".
Face the Shock of Rubbish
"Everyone who comes here will feel the shock."
On the 6th floor of the Songjiang Tianma Waste free Low Carbon Environmental Protection Industrial Park, in an inconspicuous room, two staff members sit on a specially designed operating platform. In front of them was a huge glass, with a view extending from the top to the feet, and all they could see was a sky full of household waste.
In contrast, the people in the operation room appear particularly small. They control two grab buckets by moving the joystick, each weighing 8 to 10 tons, to break up, flip, and transfer the garbage in the giant garbage bin.
Faced with the astonishment of the visitors, the staff remained calm and composed, carrying out the preparation work before the garbage incineration like a doll. All household waste entering the incineration plant needs to stay here for 3-4 days in order to fully burn after draining the liquid.
"Post-00s" commentator Xiao Gu said that this year the park has received 106 batches of visitors, with the farthest guests coming from Ordos, Inner Mongolia, thousands of kilometers away.
And the questions that visitors are generally concerned about are: what are the standards for stacking garbage? Why do we need to keep flipping through these garbage? Why is the garbage slowly shaken off instead of being released all at once when using the large grabbing clip to place garbage
"In fact, the answers to these questions mostly point to the same goal - calorific value." Rong Jing, the operation director of Tianma Park, told reporters that currently, incineration is the main method of waste disposal at the end of the park, and the electricity resources converted from incineration not only maintain the operation of the park, but also directly transmit them to the State Grid, becoming one of the sources of income for the park.
When the calorific value of garbage incineration changes, the technology and equipment for incineration power generation also need to change accordingly. "After garbage classification, a large amount of kitchen waste is diverted in the early stage, resulting in an increase in the calorific value of dry waste and a decrease in leachate. This puts new requirements on garbage treatment equipment and technology, and has become one of the reasons for the construction of Tianma Phase II project," said Rong Jing.
In addition, there are different strategies for the resource utilization of wet waste among different cities.
For example, in cities such as Chongqing, the oil extraction rate of wet waste will be higher; In the eastern coastal areas, the content of shellfish in household waste will increase, which will put forward different requirements for transformation and extraction technology and equipment. For the final disposal of garbage, it must be tailored to local conditions.
On the contrary, the disposal of the end will also have an impact on the front-end classification.
Taking the wet garbage factory as an example, in the unloading hall, the staff also evaluate the quality level of the garbage during the process of entering and receiving materials, which is divided into four levels: excellent, good, medium, and poor. If vehicles with poor garbage classification or severe mixing are found, they will also take photos and record the vehicles and unloading garbage, timely feedback to the environmental sanitation center, and supervise the front-end classification work.
As one of the first environmental protection organizations to open up to the public, after the end of the garbage was seen, a greater change appeared in the public's psychological level.
There are many problems at the end that citizens cannot imagine. Rong Jing said that taking wet waste disposal as an example, once sharp metal objects are not screened out in time, they will cause irreversible damage to the rotating machine itself. Cotton wool items may become tighter and tighter with the machine blades during rotation, which may also cause problems with the processing machine. "When you see these huge processing equipment and strict processing procedures, you will unconsciously reflect on whether you are lazy when it comes to garbage sorting." A visitor told reporters that perhaps a small negligence can greatly increase the cost of end of line processing, which makes him more rigorous in garbage sorting.
In addition, the openness at the end has led to a shift in people's attitudes towards waste treatment plants.
Xiaogu has received many nearby residents, and the most frequently heard sentence is: "This place is not like a garbage factory, but more like a garden factory."
After entering the end, people's perspective on garbage treatment plants has changed, and the "avoidance effect" has gradually been resolved. In fact, in order to look like a garbage factory, the park has put a lot of effort into many details.
Firstly, the appearance. For a garbage treatment plant, the most evocative symbol is the chimney. In Tianma Park, chimneys have become "sightseeing elevators".
By taking the elevator to about 75 meters, visitors can climb to the top of the chimney. The bright circular space is surrounded by 360 degree panoramic glass, and the atrium is decorated with two large columns adorned with lush green plants. The inside of the cylinder is the gas emitted after garbage treatment, and the outside of the cylinder is covered by a special insulation material. On this observation deck, there is also the park's own caf é.
Next is the smell. Within the entire park, there is only a small area with a slight smell of garbage, located in the garbage truck dumping area. Approximately 900 garbage trucks enter the park daily and deliver the garbage to the designated areas of each end treatment facility along the designated route. Once the garbage enters the treatment process, the negative pressure large warehouse and air treatment system will prevent the leakage of "garbage odor".
Finally, there are garbage transport vehicles coming and going. In order to ensure smooth transportation of vehicles and minimize the exposure time of garbage outdoors, the park has designed roads that separate people and vehicles.
However, eliminating the "neighbor avoidance effect" relies not only on the external appearance of the factory building, but also on the core technology of garbage disposal.
Smoke purification room
When it comes to garbage incineration, many people turn pale at the mention. But few people know exactly what this "tiger" looks like.
On the tour path of Tianma Park, visitors will come out of the garbage bin and arrive at the incineration and power generation equipment, where they will see the final products of garbage incineration, which are recycled bricks and fly ash made from slag. Among them, the inconspicuous fly ash that looks like "pot bottom ash" is toxic and harmful substances containing certain heavy metals and dioxins. However, the treatment methods for fly ash have also been presented to the public. Through strict chelation and other harmless treatments, stabilized and safe fly ash will enter a dedicated landfill area for safe treatment, with a volume of only 2% of the original volume, and its impact on the environment will be minimized.
The opening up at the end also translates to the efficiency of garbage disposal to some extent. Yang Tao, the general manager of Tianma Park, believes that although this efficiency is invisible and intangible, as more and more visitors gather consensus, the low loss rate of future end treatment equipment will be lower, the efficiency of garbage combustion will be higher, and the resistance to the construction of end environmental protection facilities will be smaller.
Outside the bottom, try to do more
"The garbage that can be effectively utilized should have been collected long before it was delivered to us."
This sentence expresses the bitterness of many end of the line environmental protection enterprises - many waste with high material singularity and high recycling value have already entered recycling before entering the end of line disposal, and the end of line needs to face more difficult, inefficient, and limited profit "resource utilization" problems.
However, this does not mean that end environmental protection companies have no way out.
"One of our important topics is how to tap into the deeper value of the garbage that reaches the end, beyond the protection of the foundation," said Lu Feng, General Manager of Shanghai Laogang Ecological and Environmental Protection Base. And the way black water flies make money may bring us some inspiration.
After driving into the old port base, people can overlook the orange robotic arms on the container terminal. Since 2010, the garbage in the central urban area of Shanghai center has been transported to this place by water, from which the wet garbage is transported to the bioenergy reuse center, and after pretreatment, it is transported to the breeding workshop of the black water fly.
Shanghai Laogang Renewable Energy Utilization Center Terminal Xinhua News Agency
This is a square and upright fully automatic "black light factory", with no staff inside the factory. Once wet waste enters the factory, all processes from material laying, insect laying to output are automated.
In the vast factory building, only mechanical arms and conveyor belts operate between different boxes. By absorbing wet garbage slurry, black soldier fly larvae quickly "grow" here.
Ma Cong, a Ph.D. in biology from Tsinghua University, is the research and engineering leader of the black soldier fly project. He told reporters that the black soldier fly is a resourceful insect with a short growth cycle but high resource conversion efficiency. After hatching, the black soldier fly larvae will experience a period of about 7 days of "binge eating", during which they will eat wet garbage equivalent to 200 times their own weight, and their weight will correspondingly increase by tens of times, with huge potential for organic waste treatment.
The black soldier fly breeding workshop is divided into three areas: incubation area, breeding area, and fabric harvesting area. The breeding area accounts for about 2/3 of the total, and there are 3 x 7 sets of breeding boxes stacked inside, each with 22 layers of boxes. When the adult black soldier fly grows to its fullest, it is transported by a conveyor belt to the screening machine in the post-treatment workshop. Through the rotation of the two-stage vibrating screen, it achieves "separation of insect and feces.".
Ultimately, the feces will be sent to the farm for further processing and turned into organic fertilizer for soil improvement or agricultural cultivation. The insect body is rich in high-quality protein and can be used as feed for aquaculture and poultry farming after drying. At present, the market price of dried insects is around 8000 yuan per ton.
In fact, the black soldier fly is a common insect in China, and many farmers cultivate it. Through observation, people have found that this insect has a high efficiency in transforming household waste.
So, can we draw on and apply this "folk wisdom" to the garbage treatment in big cities?
Once, with this question in mind, Wu Yuefeng, Deputy General Manager of Shanghai Chengtou Laogang Base Management Co., Ltd., led the project team to conduct a comparative experiment, attempting to decompose wet garbage using insects such as earthworms and house flies, and ultimately chose the black water fly.
Using black water flies to eat garbage Xinhua News Agency
He told reporters that in addition to high added value in production, black water flies also have advantages in biosafety. "It has no 'mouthparts' after transforming into a fly, so it basically does not cause the spread of bacteria. Another magical thing is that insects themselves have antibodies to most infectious diseases. After being consumed and digested by the black soldier fly, many original bacteria are also eliminated."
In addition to the transformation process "awesome", the smooth flow of the upstream and downstream industrial chain is also an essential part for Blackwater Tabanus to quickly enter the market. After two years of research and development, the team has achieved the entire process from introduction to small-scale experiments, to factory and large-scale operations.
In fact, compared to the traditional black soldier fly breeding industry, end of the line environmental protection enterprises in big cities have unique advantages. Firstly, sufficient raw materials and sufficient amount of wet waste ensure the scale effect of aquaculture treatment; Secondly, the high degree of industrialization integration and automated production mode can bring cost advantages; Finally, as a coastal city in the eastern part of China, Shanghai has a well-developed aquaculture industry in the surrounding area, and its products are easily sold, which is also a clear geographical advantage.
Shanghai Laogang Renewable Energy Utilization Center Phase II Project
The success of the Black Water Fly project has shown Wu Yuefeng a new space for waste disposal at the end. Next, he hopes to lead the team to make breakthroughs in the field of waste fiber and plastic.
"At present, most waste clothing, fibers, or plastic products can be recycled and reused, but there is still a portion of low value fibers, plastics, etc. that will come to us."
Wu Yuefeng told reporters that they had previously collaborated with BASF in Germany on a project aimed at refining these wastes into oil, but ultimately found that the entire process had high disposal costs and was difficult to complete self recycling.
The existing conversion strategy is to process these waste fibers and plastics into fuel rods for power generation and other purposes, thereby increasing the thermal energy utilization rate from the original 25% to 45%. But the team still hopes to develop composite boards through technological research and development, so that waste can be reused with higher value.
In fact, many difficulties in the treatment of waste at the end of the line are also topics for scientific research and innovation. Therefore, Wu Yuefeng also had the idea of establishing a science and technology innovation center in Laogang: "The end treatment park has relatively complete processing equipment and experimental conditions, which can provide convenient conditions for the research and development and implementation of many processes."
Another function of the Science and Technology Innovation Center is technology reserve. "With the development of emerging industries such as new energy and artificial intelligence, we need to consider whether there will be new categories of industrial waste and whether there will be new problems in its treatment. These are all things we need to think about at the forefront."
However, in order to truly achieve high value-added transformation, these three elements are indispensable: technological research and development, economies of scale, and upstream and downstream industrial chains. Wu Yuefeng hopes that in the future, technology transformation products from end-of-life environmental protection factories can be linked to "carbon trading" and strive for a stronger competitive advantage in the market.
Answer "Where is the garbage"
"Where did the sorted garbage end up? Will they mix up again? Is hard sorting really useful?"
In fact, the answers to these questions are all at the end of garbage disposal.
In Shanghai, the distance people reach to the end seems a bit far. Tianma Park is the closest terminal disposal enterprise to the downtown area of Shanghai, but it is still nearly 50 kilometers away from People's Square and about 60 kilometers away from the Old Port Base. How can we attract more people to the end?
This is not difficult for Tianma Park, as it is the only Chinese enterprise selected for the United Nations Environment Programme's Circular Economy Handbook and has its own "traffic".
Yang Tao told reporters that more people visiting and learning in Tianma Park come from local governments and environmental protection enterprises.
Visiting channels within the park
Unlike many other end of the line environmental protection enterprises, Tianma Park has always had only one entity from construction to operation, which directly reflects the level of intensification and collaboration in the park.
"For most medium-sized cities, we match their waste disposal volume, so the degree of mutual learning and reference will be higher," said Yang Tao.
When introducing his experience, Yang Tao always talks about "foresight". He believes that in the solid waste treatment industry, planning must be ahead of practice, and only the higher the degree of intensification, the greater the space for cost reduction and efficiency improvement.
In addition, a compact industrial layout is not only conducive to the "material circulation" within the park, but also conducive to the concentrated display of waste treatment results.
In Laogang, the upgrading work of the Shanghai Municipal Solid Waste Science Popularization Exhibition Hall is about to be completed. The upgraded exhibition hall will also become an important station on the "industrial tourism" roadmap of Laogang, connecting with the entire Laogang Park and Wetland Park.
Entering the science museum, a huge PET molecular pendant light first catches the eye, followed by a long corridor composed of 262 black and white photography works, including plastic wrapped turtles, isolated polar bears on melting glaciers, and seabirds with nowhere to forage, all of which have a strong visual impact.
After entering the main venue, a large screen scrolled through the history of Shanghai's urban waste disposal: in 1989, the landfill of domestic waste and construction waste was the main focus here; In 2013, the resource and energy utilization of household waste was initiated; Up to now, comprehensive disposal and zero landfill of solid waste have been achieved.
In front of the big screen, there is a round table, which is an interactive device for garbage knowledge. By flipping the different types of "garbage" on the desktop, people can know its degradation time in nature. For example, the degradation of glass takes 1-2 million years.
Such interactive devices can be seen everywhere in the venue. On a circular platform projecting a map of Shanghai, people can choose their place of residence and see the entire process of garbage collection, transportation, and final disposal.
Various end treatment technologies such as wet garbage fermentation bins, landfill pits, oil conversion devices, and garbage separation devices have also been showcased in the exhibition hall.
Wu Jinzhi, the person in charge of the Shanghai Municipal Solid Waste Science Popularization Exhibition Hall, told me
In fact, it's not just at the end, there are still many environmental protection facilities around us.
As early as March 2022, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment launched the "Open Environmental Protection Facilities to the Public" mini program, which included more than 2100 environmental protection facility units nationwide. Among them, there are many places in Shanghai that can be booked, covering various aspects such as garbage disposal, air monitoring, and water pollution treatment.
However, according to actual measurements by reporters, many environmental protection facilities are currently only open for group visits, making it difficult for individuals to make appointments. Some environmental protection facilities, due to their own operational considerations, have a smaller scope of opening to the outside world and weaker efforts in science popularization and display.
So, can end companies like Tianma and Laogang, which bear relatively heavier responsibilities for science popularization, receive more complete supporting facilities, give them a more tangible sense of gain, and win more development space from it?
In the view of Deng Zhituan, a researcher at the Institute of Urban and Population Development of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, "where has the garbage gone?" is not an optional issue. When more people see the final disposal of urban garbage, the successful experience of final disposal is recognized by more people, and the driving force of circular economy operation will be unconsciously strengthened.
