I. NOT BIODEGRADABLE, WHY PP NON-WOVEN BAGS ARE DEVELOPED SO MUCH

From the Internet, you can see billions topics of environmental materials. If you haven’t seen it, you may check it out. If you have seen it a lot, please see some of my cognition below. It’s a basic method of research to resolve a topic into complex factors, but to seek the essence through phenomena, we simplify factors into a practical conclusion. Regarding this topic, we use the latter.

From the analysis of essential components and environmental impact, PP material has only two aspects for deciding whether to invest in the non-woven industry.

1.1 POLYPROPYLENE IS STILL A POLYMER

Not biodegradable! And it can not completely disappear in the environment without non-human intervention

1.2 NO LIFE-THREATENING TO CHILDREN AND ANIMALS IF EATING BY MISTAKE

Small fragments and powders are not fatal, PP itself is non-toxic and tasteless, while PE bags can cause small or medium animals to die.

II. PP NON-WOVEN BAGS IN CHINA, INDIA

In the 11 years since 2008, PP non-woven bags have developed to a great extent in China and India. There are several characteristics:

2.1 National-Wide Scope

Covers most of the provinces and counties, rural areas.

2.2 Full-Fledged Industrial Chain

From the supply of PP granule, fabric production, printing, laminating, bag making, even sales channels, they are well-developed and highly mature.

2.3 A Large Number of Producers

Most of them are small and medium-sized. Medium-sized ones have printing or laminating machines less than 10 sets, and small-sized have bag making machines less than 3. Those large-sized producers are all located at some particular industrial parks, or near a super brand’s factory. No matter China or India, there’s no big producer of non-woven bags who owns more than 20 bag making machines nationwide. Of course, you can find 20 machines individually in one or two African countries, because they produce massive W-Cut bags to replace PE ones.

2.4 Great Impact on Other Products

2.4.1 PE Disposable Shopping Bag

Divided into 2 phases:

  • Phase 1： Non-woven W-Cut, D-Cut bags replace PE bags in the chain supermarkets, vegetable market and other types of channels. It’s a special phenomenon due to the government policy.
  • Phase 2： The implementation of the banned plastics was unsatisfactory, and the PE bags were fully restored. Those non-woven were almost completely withdrawn from the supermarkets and vegetable market, and flowed to higher value-added packaging industry.

2.4.2 Paper Bags

  • In China, paper bags do not always point to environmental friendly.
    Every Chinese person knows from the school textbooks and media reports that China’s per capital forest resources are insufficient, and the forest’s ability to regenerate is also weak. Wastewater and waste gas in the paper production chain are widely known, so in the public sentiment, paper bags are increasingly replaced by non-woven fabrics

Paper ones are replaced by the beautifully printed coated non-woven bag.
There are many reasons for this, but two are prominent:

  • The appearance of printing is comparable to the paper bag
  • The degree of firmness is many times than paper bag

III. EVERY SHOPPING BAGS BY VARIOUS MATERIAL HAS ITS OWN EVERGREEN MARKET

Historical changes in many countries that MINGBY dealt with guide us to an actual and obvious conclusion, no matter how did all people argued or fought. Shopping bags of various materials has its own independent markets in all countries.

3.1 Which countries could ban all polymer completely?

Actually PE and PP shopping bags are not completely banned in China.

Government policy makers in many countries have to face more difficulty beyond their expectations to ban thoroughly. The key reason is just one: no really practical alternative at present.

Those can achieve better results will generally be represented in countries with relatively small population and land area, less resistance to policy implementation, and low resistance of relevant stakeholders.

3.2 PE Bag

In the visible years, starch bags, PLA bags and non-woven bags can not replace the cheap and convenient PE bags.
In the face of such forced acceptance, perhaps we should actively intervene to guide the masses and PE bag manufacturers to greatly increase the recycling ratio. At this point, Uganda is now making a welcome step.

3.3 Paper Bag

Texture and inertia consumption of paper bag will maintain its customers, which will not be replaced by any other packaging. The food packaging field is also the territory of paper bags.

3.4 PP Non-Woven Bag

Non-woven bag is not completely eco-friendly, but it grasps its own spoon tightly because there are no better alternatives for the foreseeable future 10 years.

Most of the experts and scholars on the Internet are in line with science and practical, but from an industrial view we should pay attention to its application.

The core: Non-woven bag can be broken down into pieces in a normal outdoor environment within several months, and a few months into powder that does not cause excessive damage to the environment.

The cost factor killed other materials. No one can stop a better alternative, but it must be affordable. Once cost of fully biodegradable materials is chopped down, PP non-woven bag fades.

3.5 PP Woven Bag

PP woven is a twin brother of PP non-woven, which is made by same non-biodegradable, but durable and inexpensive polypropylene.

3.6 Starch Bag ( looks similar as normal PE bag )

It need 50℃ to decompose, which can’t be provided in most of the natural environment, especially in the sea or on the lake. As long as it can’t reach 50℃ above, it will re-occupy our sky, pastures, streets and alleys like PE bags.

3.7 Other Completely Eco-friendly Bags

The core constraint of canvas bags, cotton bags, linen bags and so on: In front of huge demand, they can’t be mass produced in an industrial way .

Summary

In a word, if having confidence, you can invest. No matter which country, if 10 years later, the new technology presents better raw materials, then we can talk about the industrial production of the next material.