Automated recycling machine pays people and is winning foreign orders

An automatic recycling machine in a Beijing supermarket allows people to deposit used plastic bottles and get paid through their smartphones.

The machine, invented by Beijing-based Incom Resources Recovery Recycling Co Ltd, can collect 50 empty bottles in a minute. It was listed last month as one of the capital's technological achievements in developing environmental protection industries.

After being collected, the bottles will be classified into different types by the machine. Then they will be treated and recycled in the company's factory.

Since its introduction in 2012, the capital has installed more than 3,500 of the machines and collected at least 3,000 metric tons of plastic bottles--equal to cutting 22.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the machine's inventor Liu Xuesong.

The machines, which can also record statistics and alert operators when they are nearly full, are installed at subway and bus stations, shopping malls, supermarkets and schools.

By the end of the year, the number of machines in Beijing will increase to 6,000, Liu said. They have now been sold to 15 countries and regions worldwide, including the United States, Mexico and Brazil.

In addition to Incom's automatic machines, Beijing has developed quite a few technological achievements in other environmental protection sectors.

In the sewage-treatment sector, more than 20 technologies including MBR (Membrane Bio-Reactor), an advanced wastewater treatment measure, have been used in 14 wastewater treatment plants. Thanks to the technologies, the plants' daily wastewater treatment capacity has reached 2.8 million metric tons.

Beijing has suffered serious air pollution in recent winters, increasing the public's awareness of environmental protection. This also drove the government to figure out ways to improve the environment, which has given the environmental protection industries a bright future.

"Beijing has laid out a plan to develop cutting-edge technologies for environmental protection, from wastewater management to plastic recycling, to fuel growth in related industries," said Zhang Guanglian, deputy director of Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission.

The Action Plan on Technological Innovation (2014-17) includes 20 major innovation projects to develop technologies related to water processing and solid waste management by next year.

By the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period, the output value of the environmental protection industries in Beijing is expected to reach 250 billion yuan ($37.4 billion).

Scientific and technological innovation is an important tool to help improve the environment, Huang Runqiu, vice-minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said in an international conference on environmental protection technologies held in Beijing in June.

But, it is not the only effort Beijing had made to improve environmental quality. Other actions, including developing clean energies, controlling coal-burning, and punishing companies that pollute the environment, have also been taken.

Earlier this month, Beijing announced it will shut down 60 companies handling dangerous chemicals that have bad effects on the environment, plus another 20 in 2017 and 2018, according to a report by China Environment News, which cited the Beijing Administration of Work Safety.

Shougang Group, a major state-owned steelmaker in Beijing, shut its plant in 2010 and moved its entire operations to Caofeidian in neighboring Hebei province. A series of such measures to reduce pollution have improved Beijing's environment.

The 2015 Beijing Environmental Statement showed that the discharge of major pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, nitric oxide, chemical oxygen demand, and ammonia nitrogen, were further reduced by 9.8 percent, 8.83 percent, 4.33 percent, and 12.98 percent, respectively.

zhangyu@chinadaily.com.cn