Changes in China's hot water bottle manufacturing industry in 2022

Changes in China's Hot water bottle manufacturing industry in 2022

In late March 2022, the rubber hot water bottle factory in Shiqiao Town began to stop work. The reason was that after the government department inspected many factories, it was found that serious environmental pollution still exists in this industry, and many factories have not made improvements. Therefore, the government notified the entire Hot water bottle factory in Shiqiao Town shuts down.

The main reason for this phenomenon is that many hot water bottle factories turn a deaf ear to the opinions issued by the government, do not pay attention to pollution problems, and do not install pollutant collection and treatment equipment. These are just some of the many problems with small hot water bottle factories. The local government had also conducted an inspection before, but the period was only a few days. This time, the Jiangsu provincial government and the central government were directly alerted. The rubber hot water bottle factory was faced with the strictest supervision.

Factories that cannot pass the government audit this time will be forced to close permanently. The audit will focus on pollutant collection and treatment equipment and environmental audit procedures. In order to pass the audit, a considerable number of factories need to be relocated, relocating factories from residential areas to industrial areas, and installing pollutant collection and treatment equipment that meets standards. Going through this process completely takes months and is costly.

From April 2022, there will be many changes in China's hot water bottle industry

1. Reduced number of rubber hot water bottle factories and reduced production capacity

At the end of March, a rubber hot water bottle factory was confirmed to be permanently closed, and more factories will be closed in the future. Because these factories have to pay a huge price to pass the review, either purchasing pollutant equipment or relocating to an industrial area, each option requires a lot of time and budget.

2. Factory operating costs rise

The cost here is not only the purchase and installation of pollutant collection and treatment equipment, but also the cost of use. Each rubber hot water bottle factory needs to be equipped with 2 sets of independent pollutant collection and treatment equipment, which are installed in the vulcanization workshop and the rubber mixing workshop respectively. Previously, many factories have installed pollutant collection and treatment equipment but have not used it, just to cope with the government's inspection. In the later operation process, the activated carbon needs to be replaced every 3 months, and a special waste warehouse must be set up.

3. The number of hot water bottle suppliers will not decrease

The hot water bottle industry is about to be similar to the Inflatable rubber cushion industry. Although the boss has closed the factory, there will still be local and trading companies outside Yangzhou to sign contracts with such suppliers relying on the cooperative relationship that has been accumulated for many years. And it's hard to tell the kind of information about companies that have actually shut down factories, As long as the company information is not written off, everything looks exactly the same as before.

4. Delivery delay

The number of factories is reduced, the number of orders is the same, and the delivery time is delayed. Importers are better off scheduling orders earlier than ever to avoid delays in sales.

5. Trading companies and large factories will subcontract more orders

Large hot water bottle factories will increasingly focus on large, high-margin orders, and small-volume low-margin orders will be subcontracted to smaller factories. The importer will not find out, because the order is still placed to the trading company. Subcontracting of orders is mainly concentrated between factories instead of trading companies and factories.

6. Hot water bottle price hikes and lower quality standards

For the BS1970:2012 hot water bottle, it is mainly divided into two categories, one is price increase, the second is the factory reducing quality standards, such as reducing wall thickness, reduce rubber content, changing the formula to shorten the vulcanization time, for example, the importer ordered 20,000pcs BS hot water bottles, which are mixed with Miscellaneous these 2000pcs hot water bottles with reduced quality standards.

For India hot water bottle, since most manufacturers have reduced the rubber content to 18%, it is difficult to continue to reduce the cost, and there is a high probability that the price will increase.

Regarding the fake BS hot water bottle in the European market, the price will likely increase in the future.

7. Rubber hot water bottle association incompetent

In the process of responding to the government review, the hot water bottle association did not play any role, neither negotiating with the government on behalf of the entire hot water bottle industry nor urging each member to actively improve the treatment of pollutants in the factory, all hot water bottle factories fought their own way.

The above phenomenon is only caused by environmental protection and pollutant treatment. If the rubber hot water bottle factory faces tax inspections, fire protection, building safety inspections and other situations in the future, other problems also will be extended.

This factory shutdown also confirms that the selection of hot water bottle suppliers that we have been emphasizing before is different from other industries. Certificates such as CE, BSCI, etc. do not indicate the reliability of the hot water bottle supplier.

The core of the next phase of the rubber hot water bottle industry is no longer marketing and sales but supply chain management.