On May 18, an expert from the British Recycling Association stated that due to the existing recycling technology, many packages marked with “recyclable”, such as potato tube, functional beverage bottle, and black plastic boxes filled with fresh food, are actually Can not be recycled.

The British Broadcasting Corporation quoted experts from the British Recycling Association as saying that the more types of materials used in product packaging, the more difficult it is to recycle, because it is difficult to separate these different materials with existing recycling equipment. Take "Principal" potato chips as an example, its packaging tube includes a metal bottom, a plastic cover, a tear-off metal thick film, and a foil-coated cardboard sleeve. "(This kind of packaging) is the number one villain in the recycling industry. It's just impossible to separate these materials. It's like a nightmare," said Simon Eline, chief executive of the recycling association.

Bottles of functional beverages such as "Grapes" are "second-biggest dreams" in the eyes of recycling experts. Different from ordinary mineral water bottles, the outer layer of such beverage bottles is also wrapped with a layer of plastic film of different material from the bottle body, which causes the recycling equipment to fail to identify the treatment and can only rely on manual picking and is ultimately discarded.

In addition, cleaner spray bottles with metal nozzles and plastic boxes made black to make raw food look redder are also difficult to recycle because they are difficult to disassemble or lose their reuse value.

Industry experts believe that the future will mainly rely on two approaches to solve the recycling problem: First, accelerate the innovation of recycling technology, and second, encourage the simplification of product packaging design, and reduce the difficulty of recovery from the source.

The prediction data from the UK recycling industry shows that about 30% of plastic packaging does not enter the recycling system, putting a strain on the city and the natural environment. The British Crown Prince Charles plans to launch an invention competition to encourage recycling technology innovation this year, with a bonus of 1.5 million pounds (about 13.39 million yuan).