Report raises fears over plastic foam dinnerware
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, May 20, 2013
In the 500 square meter factory visited by the undercover reporter, 10 workers were seen producing plastic foam dinnerware by mixing one part of new plastic material to four parts of industrial waste, the newspaper reported. The factory's owner told the reporter they mixed together various kinds of plastic material during production to cut costs.
By using new material, the factory could earn 0.01 yuan per item. But it could triple these earnings by mainly using industrial waste, the owner said.
The factory's machines can churn out thousands of plastic foam products every hour.
In a larger factory in the city there are machines capable of producing 50 containers every second, the paper said.
The products were being sold to big cities such as Shenzhen and Guangzhou, a factory official said.
According to the newspaper, one factory owner said that although plastic foam containers had not been allowed to be used or sold over the past 14 years, they had been able to continue production by bribing local government officials.
"Our factory was inspected by local industrial and environmental watchdogs, but we paid them money to solve the problems," the owner said.
He told the newspaper that 3,000 (US$488) to 5,000 yuan would be paid to keep government watchdogs quiet.
It is estimated that production companies in China have an annual capacity of 14 billion dinnerware items made of plastic foam, according to China National Radio.
Previously, some experts had warned against the decision to end the ban.
Dong Jinshi, deputy general secretary of the Beijing Society for Environmental Sciences, said a recycling system had not been established and it was more dangerous to use such products today as many companies were using waste plastic to make them.
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