Chinese Consumers Worried about Plastic Waste – IFAT Messe Munich Survey

MUNICH–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#china–83 percent of Chinese consumers are worried about the environment
because of plastic waste. At the same time, 63 percent are convinced
that avoiding waste is a task that concerns every consumer. However,
just under one in three citizens is convinced that too much waste is
produced in their own household. These are results of the "IFAT
Environment Index 2018" of the world's leading trade fair for
environmental technologies IFAT in Munich.

The Chinese government banned imports of plastic waste and 23 other
recycled materials from abroad as of January 1 this year. Unlike paper
and glass, plastic waste is not separated into individual material
groups – the recycled material is of little value. The EU alone exported
more than 80 percent of its plastic waste to China. The Chinese
government has now set the goal of establishing a modern recycling
economy and cannot make good use of imported plastic waste for this
purpose.

"85 percent of the 1.000 Chinese consumers surveyed are in favour of the
government's goal of fully recycling waste in a closed-loop economy in
future," says Stefan Rummel, Managing Director of Messe München. "83
percent also expressed great confidence in modern environmental
technology, which makes waste recyclable to become valuable raw
material.” Not even one in three Chinese consumers rate the
environmental technology of their country as a successful industry
today. In Germany and France by comparison, one in two consumers think
their countries` environmental technology already is a successful
industry.

86 percent of Chinese consumers favour global cooperation when it comes
to research and development of environmental technology. "The IFAT study
is further proof that challenges in the field of sustainability and
resource protection do not stop at national borders. That is why we also
need solutions that are designed and implemented globally”, says Peter
Kurth, President of the Federal Association of the German Waste, Water
and Raw Materials Management Industry (BDE) in Berlin. “German and
Chinese waste management companies have been successfully engaged in the
expansion of the environmental service branch for years and present
their competences, products and services at IE expo China in Shanghai in
May and IFAT in Munich, also in May.”

More information on IFAT and IE expo China is available at www.ifat.de/en
and www.ie-expo.com.

Contacts

Messe München
Bianca Gruber
phone. +49 89949-21502
[email protected]