TCL leads Chinese corporate campaign to recycle discarded appliances

Chinese home appliance manufacturers are gearing up to recycle waste household appliances into reusable products, as part of broader push to promote the development of circular economy.

TCL Corp has ramped up efforts to recycle waste products through offline recycling companies and online services.

The Huizhou, Guangdong province-based company has set up two recycling companies, including TCL-Aobo Environmental Protection and Development Co Ltd in Tianjin and TCL-Deqing Environmental Protection and Development Co Ltd in Shantou, South China's Guangdong province.

According to TCL, the two companies could meet the demands of disposal and disassembly of waste home appliances in both North and South China. The company has created a unique model of circular economy, becoming the first domestic enterprise to be engaged in the circular industrial chain of household appliances.

"Green circular economy has always been the philosophy that we adhered to, and home appliance recycling is a vital part of TCL's green industrial chain," said Wang Chunlin, general manager of TCL-Aobo.

"Discarded household appliances have great value in recycling. Green recycling will become the core competence of TCL in the future," Wang said.

According to Wang, waste televisions, refrigerators and computers are usually sent to dismantling factories, where, after crushing, sorting and chemical refining, materials like plastics, glass, iron and copper are extracted.

TCL-Deqing is in charge of recycling and dismantling home appliances collected from six cities in eastern Guangdong province. In 2018, the company had carried out recycling work of used household appliances with 82 enterprises and institutions in Guangdong.

The two companies owned by TCL recycled more than 3.2 million units of waste home appliances last year, with its total weight reaching over 95,000 metric tons.

Founded in 1981, TCL has grown into a multinational in smart product manufacturing and internet application services.

Data from the China Resource Recycling Association showed that in recent years, the number of discarded home appliances maintained a 20-percent annual growth rate. It is expected that the figure will reach 137 million units in 2020.

Apart from establishing offline recycling company, TCL is exploring new recycling methods, helping improve recycling efficiency, as well as establish a global recycling system.

In 2018, TCL also developed the internet-plus recycling model, and established recycling transit stations through cooperation with Chinese internet giant Baidu Inc.

Shifendaojia, an online home services platform incubated by TCL, which is also a major after-sales service company, provides recycling, repair, cleaning, distribution and installation of home appliances, the repair and recycling of smartphones, and extended warranty and other services.

Skyworth Group Co Ltd and the China Video Industry Association launched a campaign to eliminate old home appliances and replace them with new ones.

The campaign responds to the supply-side reform and consumption upgrade policy of the government.

Skyworth said it is an innovative project as the problem of the televisions exceeding their service time is very serious, and through the replacement of high-quality products, consumers can enjoy enhanced experiences.

Liu Buchen, an independent researcher in the home appliances sector, said that at present, the country's recycling system has made great progress, but public awareness has not kept up with that, and there are still a large number of waste home appliances that have not entered regular recycling channels.