Advantages Of Recycling Textile Wastes

At present, the world's economic development is faced with two major problems: resource crisis and environmental pollution.

Take the textile industry as an example, on the one hand, the world textile industry is highlighted by the increasing population and the shortage of raw materials and the sharp rise in prices. On the other hand, a large number of textile wastes, including leftovers, leftovers, waste yarn, scrap cloth, scrap clothing and other waste textiles in daily life or burned or buried, are both wasting resources and causing environmental pollution.

Therefore, how to minimize the shortage of textile resources while minimizing the shortage of textile resources is a common concern of people through the recovery, development and reuse of textile wastes.

Present situation of textile waste recycling

In recent years, the recovery and utilization of textile waste in China has developed rapidly.

Taking Zhejiang Cangnan as an example, the textile waste treated annually reaches hundreds of thousands of tons, and has become a national famous textile waste recycling base.

These textile wastes are made of reprocessed fibers after bleaching, fading and loosening, and are reprocessed into fiber products as reprocessed fibre products.

Reprocessed fiber and its products are widely used in various fields such as furniture decoration, clothing, home textiles, toys and automobile industry.

However, due to the relatively backward processing technology of textile waste and low entry threshold, textile waste has also seriously damaged the health of the surrounding environment and employees at the same time of recycling.

The harm caused by textile waste reprocessing mainly occurs in the following two links: first, the large amount of dust produced by textile wastes during the opening process is not only harmful to human health, but also has an impact on the surrounding crops; two, the textile waste used a large amount of sodium hypochlorite solution and sulfuric acid during the bleaching and bleaching process. These chemicals directly discharged into the atmosphere, rivers and farmland without any treatment, and seriously harming the surrounding environment.

Taking Cangnan County of Zhejiang Province as an example, textile waste reprocessing has been in the history of nearly one hundred years. At present, 200 thousand employees, of whom more than 90% are unlicensed and unprocessed individual processing sites, and more than 4500 of the bleaching and fading pools are distributed in more than 120 villages in 9 townships, such as Yishan and Longgang. The merchants will pour waste cloth into the fading pond from Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong and other garment factories and toy factories, fade them with sodium hypochlorite and sulfuric acid, and discharge more than 6 million tons of toxic and harmful substances into rivers and farmland annually.

Sodium hypochlorite solution is used as a discoloring liquid. Its main raw material, liquid chlorine, is a highly dangerous and highly toxic substance. These discoloration potions will produce chemical reactions in the water first, and then produce chlorine to volatilize and cause air pollution.

Chlorine is a poisonous and deadly gas. It can kill people to a certain extent.

Secondly, these discoloration potions flow into the middle of the river and react with organic compounds in the river to produce various chlorinated organic compounds. These chlorinated organic compounds are highly toxic, which can cause cancer, cause cell abnormalities and cause genetic mutations.

Because the discoloring potion itself is a very strong oxide, it can cause the organisms to die in the water, and the ecological damage is extremely serious.

{page_break}

Externality Analysis of textile waste recycling

Pigou, a British economist, once pointed out that externality can be regarded as the difference between the social cost and the private cost of goods, that is, the non market influence of economic entities on others and society in production or consumption activities.

According to the influence, externalities can be divided into positive externalities (external economies) and negative externalities (external diseconomies).

When the income caused by the behavior of the main body of the market can not be fully acquired by itself, it will produce an external positive effect, that is, positive externalities (external economy); when the cost caused by the behavior of the market participants is not entirely borne by themselves, it will produce a negative external effect, that is, negative externalities (external diseconomy).

For example, environmental protection, resource reuse and other activities can produce positive externalities, while environmental pollution, waste of resources and other activities will produce negative externalities.

Although externalities are common in economic life, the market mechanism itself can not eliminate externalities.

In the micro economics of regulation, Japanese economist said that if there are market failures such as monopoly, imperfect competition, information asymmetry and externality, government intervention will have potential possibility.

In terms of textile waste reprocessing system, it also has externalities.

It is this externality and its indifference to the extent that it causes the dilemma of recycling of textile wastes to a certain extent.

Textile producers, reprocessing enterprises, consumers (individuals or groups).

The three actors have the following actions: 1) the waste materials produced by textile producers in the production of textiles, including yarns, fabrics, clothing, etc., may be dealt with in the following ways: first, they are thrown away directly.

This method is in line with the goal of maximizing the interests of enterprises because of no need to control costs. However, throwing away directly will cause environmental pollution, especially the degradation of chemical fiber products and bring economic losses to the society.

The two is the recycling and reuse of textile waste.

This way needs to invest a lot of people, money and goods, resulting in an increase in the cost of the enterprise and a decrease in profits. In the process of reuse, there will be two pollution and the cost of controlling pollution will be great.

Three, it is regularly sold to the textile waste recycling and reprocessing enterprises, that is, the cost of pollutant discharge can be saved and certain benefits can be obtained.

2) consumers may deal with their obsolete or dilapidated textiles in the following ways: first, direct discarding; two, selling to street vendors, and three by manufacturers or processing enterprises.

3) recycling and reprocessing enterprises have the following ways to deal with textile wastes: first, recycling (comprehensive recycling); two, simple recovery (only high value recovery).

In order to discuss the externality, we assume that the marginal behavior expenditure is PEi, the marginal social expenditure is SEi, the external expenditure is EEi = Si Yi, the marginal actor's income is PBi, the marginal social income is SBi, and the external income is EBi = Si Bi Bi (I = 1, 2, 3, respectively, indicating textile producers, recycling reprocessing enterprises, consumers).

The above analysis and hypothesis can be obtained:

Negative externalities in textile waste recycling

From the perspective of cost income, negative externalities essentially refer to the fact that the expenditure of actors is less than that of social expenditure, that is, the cost of production or consumption is spillover.

According to the theory of economics, assuming that MBi represents marginal revenue curve, the negative externalities of textile producers, reprocessing enterprises and consumers are analyzed.

{page_break}

It is assumed that this is a market structure that is near perfect competition.

The horizontal axis represents production or consumption (Q), and the longitudinal axis represents the cost of expenditure (C).

Marginal revenue MBi is a decreasing curve, SEi and PEi are two increasing curves.

A is the intersection point between MBi and SEi, B is the intersection point between MBi and PEi, and C is the intersection point between aQo and bCi.

Generally speaking, textile manufacturers, recycling and reprocessing enterprises and consumers choose the number of products (or goods) that they produce (or consume) according to the principle of MB=PE.

When choosing B, externalities are generated: textile producers, recycling and reprocessing enterprises, consumers paying only C, but producing more or consuming QoQi products (or commodities).

Among them, the triangle (delta ABC) area is the social cost of spillover.

The following conclusions can be drawn by analyzing figures 1, 2 and 3.

1) textile producers.

There are two kinds of environmental pollution caused by products produced by textile producers. One is the textile wastes produced in the production process, such as leftover materials. The two is the obsolescence of manufactured products and the possible impact on environment caused by backlogs.

Generally speaking, textile producers only bear the cost of production (i.e. C), while the use of resources is free or low, and no reprocessing fees are paid to the society. In addition, a large number of chemical textiles can not be degraded at all. Therefore, the cost of recovery and disposal of textile wastes and overstock products produced in their production should be paid by the producers who have benefited, but this part of the cost has also been evaded by the enterprises, and even the sale of textile wastes is generally available.

Therefore, manufacturers do not fully undertake external costs.

Thus, the social expenditure is greater than the expenditure of the actors. The difference between the two is that there is no production cost, but after the internal cost is externalized, it is assumed by the whole society. Finally, the external diseconomy is formed, and the environmental pollution of the textile producers will be unavoidable.

2) consumers.

There are two kinds of consumers' pollution to the environment: one is to dispose of certain products casually and cause environmental pollution in the course of use; the two is the possible environmental impact of textile obsolescence.

As consumers, after enjoying the effectiveness of textiles, they should be responsible for the reasonable whereabouts of products.

However, consumers generally only assume the cost of purchase (i.e. C), and evade the cost of obsolete textile recycling, and even the sale of consumers that will be eliminated.

The negative externalities of consumption will inevitably encourage consumers to spend more, and easily induce and breed more resources and environmental problems.

3) recycling of reprocessing enterprises.

From the perspective of resource reuse, recycling and recycling enterprises are an important part of the recycling chain, making it possible to reuse resources.

At the same time, as a means, recycling and reprocessing enterprises have solved the external diseconomy caused by textile producers and consumers, that is, the environmental pollution caused by textile wastes.

However, in the process of recycling and processing textile wastes, recycling and reprocessing enterprises produce two more serious environmental problems, such as sodium hypochlorite and other serious effects on air, soil and river.

And it has not paid for the sewage charges, even the basic taxes and fees of the state have escaped.

From the perspective of cost and profit, positive externalities refer to the fact that the income of the actors is less than the social benefits, that is, the income from production or consumption is spillover.

As textile producers, recycling reprocessing enterprises and consumers do not get all the profits from products or commodities, the three actors lack sufficient motivation and enthusiasm for production or consumption.

The existence of positive externalities is not conducive to the normal development of textile waste recycling, and does not meet the long-term interests of circular economy.

{page_break}

Suggestions and Countermeasures for recycling textile wastes

From the above analysis, we know that there is externality in textile recycling.

This externality easily changes the balance between supply and demand, and is not conducive to the optimization of environment and resources, resulting in market failure.

Therefore, it is necessary for the government to intervene in order to eliminate this failure.

The basic purpose of government intervention is to internalize externalization cost and internalize external income, so as to achieve the goal of correcting externalities and correcting market mechanism.

The government management department is the maker and supervisor of the textile recycling system. It plays the role of supervision, management, organization, coordination and guidance.

The following are some suggestions and measures from the perspective of institutional innovation according to the different actors.

1) textile producers.

In view of the negative externalities of textile producers, the resource tax should be levied on the basis of the existing policies and measures, and the textile waste disposal law should be formulated to clarify the responsibilities and obligations of enterprises in the recycling system, so as to solve the problem of unknown textile wastes and the cost of reprocessing textile wastes.

For positive externalities, government departments should actively encourage enterprises to develop in the direction conducive to social and environmental development, encourage the use of environmentally friendly and ecological textiles and reprocessed fibers, and establish the necessary subsidy system or reduce their tax policies, so as to internalize external earnings as far as possible.

2) consumers.

In our country, the consumer protection law guarantees the best interests of consumers.

There is no specific definition of consumers' responsibilities in consumer activities.

In the future, consumers should be clear about the obligations they should undertake in the disposal of waste textiles, especially the classification responsibility and disposal costs of waste textiles, so as to reduce the excessive consumption behavior of consumers.

For positive externalities, a subsidy incentive system should be established.

3) recycling of reprocessing enterprises.

Recycling and recycling is an important part of the recycling chain, making it possible to reuse resources.

At the same time, as a means, recycling and reprocessing enterprises have solved the external diseconomy caused by textile producers and consumers, that is, the environmental pollution caused by textile wastes.

The government should give ecological rewards to its positive externalities.

However, in the process of recycling and processing textile wastes, recycling and reprocessing enterprises produce two more serious environmental problems, such as sodium hypochlorite and other serious effects on air, soil and river.

To this end, the government should take effective measures to strengthen management and make use of existing legal weapons to firmly curb the trend of environmental pollution.

At the same time, we must resolutely ban illegal production of enterprises without license, and establish an access system for textile waste recycling and reprocessing enterprises. We should focus on sorting, concentrate on leg color, concentrate sewage (gas) treatment, and give tax relief policies to solve the negative externalities of recycling and reprocessing enterprises.

At the same time, we can also consider building a reasonable income distribution system among producers, consumers and recycling processing enterprises.

In short, in the recycling of textile waste, only through the government's necessary intervention to accelerate the pace of institutional innovation, can we effectively mobilize all parties and enthusiasm in the market and jointly promote the construction of ecological civilization.