Page 26 from: September 2012

26 September 2012

the dismantling process are either sold directly

to plastics recyclers, or – as at Hunan Vary – they

are run through proprietary shredding and

sorting equipment that washes and then sepa-

rates light and heavy fractions for marketing to

recyclers across central and southern China.

For comparison purposes, I’m shown the refrig-

erator recycling line in Changsha (the Miluo one

was being commissioned during my visit). In

general, it functions on much the same principle

as the CRT recycling line: hand separation

removes PC boards, glass and compressors, and

recovers coolants. A conveyor then moves the

stripped refrigerator into a large box where a

two-stage shredder-crushing operation pulver-

ises the appliance. From there, it’s conveyed

through an eddy current and other separation

technologies to produce recovery rates of, accord-

ing to the company, 90% for ferrous, 95% for

non-ferrous and 95% for plastics. According to

Mr Feng, it can handle 80 refrigerators per hour.

Appropriate for the situation
The Changsha headquarters of Hunan Vary is

located in a vast industrial park around the

corner from a Coca-Cola bottling facility that,

I’m told, services much of Hunan Province’s

population of 65 million.

From the road, the headquarters appear to be

nothing more than two warehouses, but behind

these are others that sprawl over an area exceed-

ing 17 hectares. However, this space isn’t all for

recycling and recycling equipment. As it hap-

pens, prior to entering the recycling industry

in 2006, Hunan Vary was – and remains – a

major manufacturer of plastic cups. It is still,

Mr Feng tells me, the sole supplier of plastic

cups to all of China’s 3700-plus Kentucky Fried

Chicken outlets.

Ming Guoying, President of Hunan Vary, is

softly spoken but his words are very much to

the point. For example, when I ask him how a

plastic cup manufacturer becomes involved in

the recycling industry, he pauses before reply-

ing: ‘Ah, long story. To make money.’

But why did he decide to go into recycling

equipment when China seems to have such an

overwhelming labour price advantage? Cer-

tainly there are better opportunities in utilising

cheap labour and, when necessary, importing

foreign equipment. So why spend the money

developing Chinese equipment?

‘If we import the equipment from the Western

countries, maybe it doesn’t work so well in Chi-

nese circumstances,’ he tells me. ‘A few years ago

in Tianjin, TCL (a major Chinese appliance

manufacturer) started an e-scrap recycling

project and imported equipment from abroad.

But it wasn’t appropriate for our situation. So

we helped them develop something for China.’

What, I ask, was appropriate? He nods know-

ingly. ‘In China, our cheap labour allows us to

dismantle some scraps before they are shred-

ded,’ he explains. ‘But the shredding equipment

in the West is for scrap that hasn’t been disman-

tled. So it doesn’t work so well here.’

Provocative claim
Western equipment is far less environmentally

secure than Hunan Vary’s innovations, Mr

Ming goes on to claim. ‘I visited Germany and

saw a system that shreds complete CRTs,’ he tells

me. ‘The separation equipment sorted the plas-

tics but, afterwards, I could still see some glass

in the plastics and metals. Some of that glass is

leaded. It’s not separated completely ahead of

time. Most of the separated plastics and metals

are sold to China with that hazardous material

in it, but nobody cares. Our system does not

have that problem.’ That’s true: Hunan Vary

doesn’t shred CRT glass, but rather dismantles

and separates it by hand.

In any case, Mr Ming’s claim is a provocative

one that will no doubt rile e-recyclers in the

developed world – especially if they shred whole

televisions. But, watching his workers disas-

semble televisions in Changsha, it’s hard to

argue his point: manual labour, combined with

mechanisation, creates a safer and more envi-

ronmentally friendly recycled material than a

system based on shredding alone.

It’s a concept that Mr Ming, and Hunan Vary,

are deploying across China, into regions –

including Miluo – where unsafe and environ-

mentally unfriendly recycling techniques have

been practised for years. ‘After TCL completed

its Tianjin project,’ Mr Ming tells me, ‘Hunan

Vary and TCL partnered on a project to install

a recycling park in Guiyu.’ Guiyu, of course, is

the world’s most notorious e-scrap processing

zone, and so this is genuinely important news

amid many recent rumours about Guiyu’s

future. TCL, as I learned during a late-2011 visit

to Guiyu, has been investing in the region for

some time. But Hunan Vary’s involvement sug-

gests a pathway for Guiyu out of its polluting

past. Mechanisation, combined with the man-

ual labour that has made Guiyu’s e-scrap trad-

ers rich, has the potential to rebrand the trou-

bled town’s poor image. ‘We will dispose of all

kinds of materials there – CRTs, refrigerators,

washing machines,’ Mr Ming tells me.

ELV landmark
Back in Miluo, Mr Feng and Mr Zhou lead me

into another, open warehouse dominated by a

scrap processing line that runs for at least 50

A stadium-sized warehouse filled with tens of thousands of end-of-
life Chinese televisions.

Belly Feng (left) and Louis Zhou, Overseas Sales Managers for Hunan
Vary Tech.

ELV disassembly line fitted with proprietary reverse lifting platforms
to allow easy access to car components and fluids.

Hunan Vary’s ferrous end product is ready for the steel mill, with a
density of around 1.2 tonnes per cubic metre.

C o m p a n y p r o f i l e

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