In recent years, consumers at home and abroad have higher and higher requirements for the safety and environmental protection performance of kitchen utensils. A revolution of "environmental protection materials" is quietly emerging in Taizhou Plastic daily necessities industry. Taizhou, known as the "Kingdom of plastic products", has a market share of 60% in China.

With the increase of raw materials and labor costs year by year and the continuous rise of RMB exchange rate, Taizhou's export of plastic food kitchenware has been able to maintain a growth of more than 20% for four consecutive years. In 2012, the export volume reached 350 million US dollars, ranking the top of all major production areas in China. Recently, we went to Taizhou plastics export enterprises and listened to them talk about the "business experience" of technological innovation driving the transformation of plastics industry.

Material revolution

Du Fu once praised bamboo with the poem of "rain washing, wind blowing, and fragrance". For a long time, bamboo has been a gentleman in the hearts of Chinese literati; today, bamboo has become a raw material of environmental protection, safety and degradable kitchen utensils, which is taken from nature and returned to nature.

At the Guangzhou Fair in May this year, more than 20 products, such as bamboo fiber stainless steel heat preservation cup newly developed by Taizhou Huangyan Xinlian and plastic products Co., Ltd., shine brightly. In the words of Huang Keliang, general manager of the company, "it has attracted both eyeballs and orders, which is very successful!"

In 2009, xinlianhe first tried to use bamboo fiber, a new degradable and environmental friendly material, to produce kitchen utensils. At that time, the first generation of products can only be made into a simple tray type, and the color is single, which is difficult to satisfy customers. More importantly, the technical problem of product shrinkage and deformation has not been solved. "The first generation of products lost a lot," Huang recalled. "A car burned down. That Spring Festival, we stayed in the factory to study the material ratio."

It is a prominent problem that the technology is not qualified. After knowing the situation, Taizhou inspection and Quarantine Bureau of Zhejiang Province guided the enterprises to learn from the production process of bamboo powder flowerpot, implement technical improvement, and timely send the proofed products to the laboratory for testing. After more than two months' efforts, the problem of high moisture content and easy deformation of bamboo powder was solved, and the scrap rate of the product was effectively reduced. The next year, the product passed the FDA food inspection in the United States and lfgb food safety inspection in the European Union.

Experienced the pain of the destruction of the first generation of products after the failure of the whole vehicle, and also realized the joy of the fifth generation of products, Xiaoao Canton Fair. The research and development of bamboo fiber cooking utensils of xinlianhe went more smoothly, and successfully realized the transformation from the traditional melamine cooking utensils to the new environmental protection cooking utensils.

What's the market reaction of this new environmental protection material? Huang Keliang said with emotion: "in the past 10 years, we have never received more than 9 million orders before; last year, we received 9 million orders, which shows the popularity of bamboo fiber products."

In the first five months of this year, the export of Xinlian and bamboo fiber cooking utensils was overwhelming, with 92 batches of goods worth US $2.6752 million, an increase of 24.3% and 51.3% year-on-year, respectively. The proportion of exports in total exports rose from 47.8% in 2012 to 71.9% in 2013.

Promote "machine replacement"

At present, the mechanized spark has become a prairie fire in Taizhou one-time plastic meal kitchen utensils enterprises.

"From the international financial crisis to now, the labor cost alone has increased by 100%, and now the annual increase is more than 10%." Jinxing Industry and Trade Co., Ltd. is a plastic enterprise specializing in the production of disposable knives, forks and spoons. General manager Lin Wenjin told us, "in 2009, when there was a" recruitment difficulty ", we tried to install the manipulator." In that year, the factory invested more than 1 million yuan and installed more than 20 manipulators.

When entering the production workshop, the "big block" is the "central integrated feeding system" developed in the factory for five years. It can inject raw materials into 20 machines at the same time through pipes. After the injection molding machine processes the raw materials, the product is taken out by a two meter high manipulator and placed on the packaging platform, with an average of 13 seconds each time.

"Now, only a dozen people in our raw material class are enough. It used to take more than 40 people. According to an average of 40000 yuan a year, 10 people can save 400000 yuan." Lin Wenjin told us that the original cost of equipment has been recovered, and more importantly, "machine replacement" is very helpful to ensure product consistency and quality stability.

In Taizhou Yichi industry and Trade Co., Ltd., another one-time plastic kitchen utensil manufacturer, in addition to the central integrated material supply system and manipulator, we found that there are two long conveyor belts in the production workshop, which connect each production equipment like a highway, and transport the products to the packaging place in a centralized manner, eliminating the time of manual handling.

According to general manager Liang Zhi, the production capacity has increased by 60% ~ 100% in recent years, which is due to the function of manipulator and the credit of technological innovation, mainly the use of hot runner mold.

Both Jinxing Industry and trade and Yichi industry and trade pay close attention to the new technology trend of the industry. At the Asia Pacific rubber and plastic exhibition, the second largest industry exhibition in the world, the latest technologies such as "simulation labeling" and "rapid mold change" attracted Liang Zhi's attention; while Lin Wenjin is also actively contacting foreign customers and visiting the equipment at the exhibition in Japan, hoping to find machines with higher production capacity and faster speed. Their next goal is to realize the mechanization of packaging link as soon as possible.

Go to dream Highland

It took 8 years of persistent exploration and accumulated investment of 15 million yuan to develop a new type of environmental protection polylactide food kitchenware. For an ordinary private enterprise, this persistence is particularly precious.

In Zhejiang Xiangguang New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., general manager Fang Yong picked up a peach blossom