In a kindergarten in Changxing, Zhejiang, students make handmade products with waste cartons under the guidance of teachers. Xinhua news agency
Source: Statistical Bulletin on National Economic and Social Development in People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2020.
[research report]
editorial comment/note
With the idea of ecological civilization deeply rooted in people’s hearts, people are more and more aware of the close relationship between small things around them and environmental protection. The impact of express packaging waste on the environment is such an important matter that seems to be used to it, but it needs urgent attention.
The business volume of China’s express service industry ranked first in the world for seven consecutive years and maintained a rapid growth trend. Recently, the real-time monitoring data of the State Post Bureau showed that by June 1, 2021, China’s express delivery business volume had exceeded 40 billion pieces, which was close to the annual level in 2017. On March 12, the first special departmental regulation on express packaging management in China, the Measures for the Administration of Mail Express Packaging, came into effect. The newly revised Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste in People’s Republic of China (PRC), which was implemented in September 2020, also made relevant provisions on express packaging.
What is the current situation of express packaging waste treatment, what are the "obstruction" links, and how to effectively promote them? On the occasion of another round of e-commerce shopping craze, let’s look for the answer from the research report of think tank experts, and take the "Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai postal area" with developed express delivery industry as an example to calculate an "environmental saving account" for express delivery packaging.
For most people, online shopping has become an indispensable part of life. Accordingly, in recent years, the amount of express packaging waste has increased rapidly, which has become the primary increment of municipal solid waste and an important source of environmental pollution. According to a preliminary estimate, China’s express delivery industry consumes more than 9 million tons of paper waste and about 1.8 million tons of plastic waste every year, and it shows a rapid growth trend. In mega-cities, the increase of express packaging garbage has accounted for 93% of the increase of domestic garbage, and the increase is unabated. In the future, China’s express delivery industry will continue to maintain a high-speed growth trend, and the output of express packaging waste will continue to increase, which will bring severe challenges to the treatment of municipal solid waste.
Express packaging belongs to low-value recyclables in domestic garbage. This kind of goods has certain recycling value, but due to the high recycling cost and insufficient profit space, it can not be effectively recycled solely by market forces. It is necessary to build a large-scale and systematic governance system to make up for the loss of interests in the recycling process, so as to smooth the "last 100 meters" of garbage classification. At present, it is urgent to build a long-term governance mechanism for low-value recyclables such as express packaging, and help fight the tough battle of pollution prevention through the "green and recycling" transformation of express packaging.
Present situation: reduction has achieved certain results, and the problem of recycling remains to be solved.
In the early morning of June 10, Beijing courier Xiao Wu began to receive and deliver express delivery in the community. "When we package express items now, we will pay attention to using narrower tape, and on the basis of ensuring tight packaging, we will wrap a few less tapes to reduce tape waste. Recyclable transfer bags are also used when loading express delivery, which is more environmentally friendly than disposable plastic woven bags. Users are also increasingly choosing electronic waybills, which makes our work more convenient and the paper of waybills more economical. " Xiao Wu feels that in recent years, especially since the end of last year, both express delivery companies and ordinary households have enhanced their awareness of conservation and environmental protection.
Innovative exploration and greening have achieved initial results.In December 2020, the State Council forwarded the Opinions of the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments on Accelerating the Green Transformation of Express Packaging, proposing that by 2022, a unified, standardized and binding standard system for express green packaging will be established in an all-round way, and the proportion of e-commerce express mail will not be repackaged again will reach 85%, and the application scale of recyclable express packaging will reach 7 million, and the level of standardization, greening and recycling of express packaging will be significantly improved. By 2025, express packaging will basically achieve a green transformation.
In order to reduce the use of adhesive tape, Hainan Post has specially developed a reusable full-stack adhesive-free packing box. It replaces the five-layer double corrugated box with a three-layer single corrugated box, and does not need fixing materials such as adhesive tape, glue and nails when it is used. However, the cost of such cartons has also increased: a single carton is more expensive than before, from 0.5 yuan to 1 yuan.
With the attention of relevant departments, the reduction and greening of express packaging have achieved certain results by promoting electronic waybills, prohibiting excessive packaging of express delivery and implementing the recycling plan of express delivery packaging. However, we should also see that the low recycling rate of express packaging and the difficulty of recycling are still the difficulties to be solved in the next stage.
Corrugated boxes and plastic bags account for nearly 80% of the total.From the perspective of packaging composition, at present, China’s express packaging is mainly corrugated boxes and plastic bags. According to the Research Report on the Generation Characteristics and Management Status of Express Packaging Wastes in China, express packaging materials mainly include corrugated boxes (44.03%), plastic bags (33.5%), bagged cartons (9.47%) and document bags (5.05%).
The average weight of a corrugated box is about 329 grams, of which corrugated paper accounts for 92.4%, other indirect packaging materials such as filled plastic film account for 5.5%, express waybill accounts for 1.3%, and plastic plastic bag accounts for 0.8%. In 2018, the consumption of corrugated paper in China reached 8.233 million tons. If it is not controlled, the resources and environment will face tremendous pressure. In 2018, the consumption of plastic packaging materials in China was about 851,800 tons, and 73% of plastic packaging was directly recycled from waste, showing gray or black; 25.6% of plastic packaging is produced by mixing waste and a small amount of raw materials, which is generally yellow-green; However, pure white express packaging plastic bags produced entirely from raw materials (PP or PE, etc.) only account for 1.5%. Most of the waste materials are of unknown origin, which will also cause environmental pollution in the production process. In 2020, the state issued relevant regulations, and the "plastic restriction order" was upgraded to the "plastic prohibition order", which on the one hand reduced the use of plastic packaging, and on the other hand stimulated the demand for corrugated paper in the express delivery industry. It is estimated that by 2025, the potential demand for paper express packaging will increase by 16.59 billion pieces, and the challenges and pressures faced by China’s resources and environment should not be underestimated.
The recovery rate is low, and the overall recovery rate is less than 20%.After the express packaging is abandoned, the packaging box can be partially recycled, but the recovery rate is less than 50%; However, the recovery rate of plastic components such as fillers and tapes in express packaging is almost zero, which makes the overall recovery rate of express packaging lower than 20%.
Taking 2018 as an example, China’s express delivery industry consumed a total of 8,373,300 tons of paper packaging materials, only about 340,800 tons of corrugated boxes were reused, and about 6,888,900 tons of express packaging waste paper were recycled by mobile recyclers. That is to say, only 4% of cartons have been directly reused, the remaining 82.3% need to be downgraded to waste reproduction, and about 15% have been mixed into the domestic garbage removal system due to pollution damage.
Due to the difficulty of recycling, high recycling cost and insufficient profit of recycled materials, the recovery rate of plastic foam boxes is only 70%~80%. The plastic packaging bags used for express delivery, which account for about 95%, are low in recycling price, and plastic tapes and waybills are stuck, so the existing recycling channels cannot handle them, and will eventually be burned or buried together with domestic garbage. Some auxiliary packaging materials are also faced with the dilemma of large usage and low recovery rate. For example, for marketing reasons, or in order to avoid damage during transportation, merchants tend to use large cartons for packaging, and add a large number of plastic filling materials such as bubble bags and bubble columns to the packages, and excessively use tape to wrap the packages. Most of these auxiliary filling materials enter the domestic garbage, which brings great pressure to the sanitation system.
Bottleneck: front-end classification is difficult to implement, and the recycling value chain is defective.
Xiao Zhang, the courier, told the author: "Now, some customers will offer to use the old box at hand when sending the courier. But at present, more residents will still throw the express package directly into the garbage bin. "
Ms. Xiao, who lives in Xicheng District, Beijing, is an "online shopper". She feels a little upset about the complexity of express packaging: "I often buy a small object with a fist, but I get a big box. Take it apart, it is covered with a thick plastic film and several layers of plastic fillers. In fact, it is enough to reinforce it, so many packages are unnecessary. "
Ms. Chen is a member of the CPPCC of a prefecture-level city in the "Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai Postal Area". During the two sessions of the city this year, her proposal was about managing express packaging waste. In the residential area where she lives, although there are garbage sorting facilities, there is no special person to recycle express packaging waste, and residents also lack the awareness of special classification for this purpose. "During the visit, I found that this is not a separate problem in our community. The cost of recycling express packaging is high, and the storage space of the warehouse is limited. After recycling, it often cannot be properly disposed of, and many cartons can only be directly discarded as garbage. " She wrote these thoughts into the proposal, suggesting to improve policies and regulations, improve the express packaging standard system and recycling system, and cultivate the public’s green consumption habits.
Judging from the recycling situation of express packaging waste, there is still much room for improvement in the existing recycling system of renewable resources in China.
The compulsory grasp of green packaging is insufficient, and it is difficult to standardize express packaging from the source.A sound legal system can effectively restrain the disorderly behavior of market competition, which is an important backing for the smooth recycling of express packaging. Due to the imperfect laws related to green packaging in China, the development of green science and technology innovation has been inhibited to some extent. At present, a relatively complete legal system has not been formed in the whole life cycle of express packaging design, production, consumption and resource utilization.
First of all, there are few normative laws, and the existing relevant laws and regulations are mostly programmatic and principled, and there is no provision on how to classify and other specific contents, which is still insufficient to promote the development of green packaging in the express delivery industry; Secondly, some non-normative legal documents lack uniformity and effectiveness, and lack universality and operability to solve the problems of material selection and recycling of express packaging at present, so it is difficult to strictly regulate express packaging from the source of production.
The recycling system is not perfect, and the recycling value chain is missing.A complete recovery system of express packaging includes screening, distributing and classifying the recovered express packaging, and entering two channels of direct utilization and recycling respectively according to the intact packaging.
There are two main modes in the recycling stage: one is direct recycling by consumers. Consumers who have the concept of recycling will put the express package on a fixed recycling platform after signing for the express delivery, and the personnel at the express delivery station will handle it centrally. The other is that after consumers discard the express package as domestic garbage, the recycling unit specifically recycles it. The survey shows that at present, most consumers have a weak awareness of the classification of express packaging, and can only rely on special recycling subjects for recycling. At present, there is a lack of recycling subjects who are responsible for express packaging in China, and most of them rely on express station personnel. When their tasks are complicated and there is no time to take care of them, the recycling of express packaging will be greatly affected.
In the post-processing stage of express packaging, the processing center determines whether the packaging should be repaired or recycled according to the degree of damage. Due to problems such as over-packaging and pasting documents, the possibility of repair and reuse is low, and most of the packages are treated harmlessly. It is worth noting that in recent years, the prices of crude oil and other commodities have gone down, resulting in the prices of low-value recyclables such as plastics, glass and waste paper declining year by year. Not only ordinary residents are unwilling to collect and classify them, but even scavengers are not interested in such wastes. A large number of low-value-added express packages can only be mixed with municipal solid waste and treated together.
Suggestion: focus on convenience and efficiency, and reconstruct the recycling system
Since March 12 this year, the "Measures for the Administration of Mail Express Packaging" has been officially implemented. Since then, implementation actions have been carried out throughout the country. For example, Beijing Postal Administration continued to carry out special treatment on over-packaging and random packaging of mail express, and tried to form a complete recycling system chain by issuing special treatment plans, urging delivery enterprises to improve their working environment, and implementing the main responsibility, and took the lead in applying the Measures for the Administration of Mail Express Packaging in China to investigate and deal with illegal acts of delivery enterprises.
At a postal outlet in Xicheng District, Beijing, a grandfather took the courier and told the staff that he wanted to leave the carton here directly. Through the guidance of the staff, the uncle put the basically intact cartons in the carton recycling office. It is not uncommon for citizens to participate in the recycling of express packaging waste in Beijing. According to statistics, by the end of December, 2019, the utilization rate of express electronic waybill in Beijing was 99%, 81% of e-commerce express mails were no longer repackaged, the utilization rate of recycling transfer bags reached 76%, and the coverage rate of environmentally-friendly packaging boxes in postal outlets was 100%. More than 1,600 postal and express outlets were equipped with packaging waste recycling devices.
Based on the long-term needs of green development, China should try to build a perfect recycling policy system in view of the pain points and difficulties in recycling low-value recyclables such as express packaging, and formulate compulsory measures through policy innovation, mechanism innovation, mode innovation and technology innovation, so as to improve the recycling quality of express packaging, give play to the leading role of the government, strengthen the dominant position of enterprises, and realize the standardized management and market-driven recycling of express packaging.
Establish and improve the top-level design of green express packaging and explore the extended producer responsibility system.Focus on the whole life cycle, do a good job in top-level design from the level of laws and regulations, and formulate supervision standards and implementation systems for express packaging. Specifically, it can include: stipulating the material use standard from the source of packaging to improve the environmental protection level of packaging; Require merchants to uniformly use express packaging made of environmentally friendly materials and degradable materials, and establish an information base of express packaging manufacturers that meet the standards; Introduce the extended responsibility system of express packaging producers, with express delivery enterprises as the main body, and assume the responsibility of product recovery, recycling and final disposal; Enterprises carry out green design and design easy-to-recycle express packaging; Strengthen the standardized management of market access, intensify the crackdown on enterprises that do not meet the green express packaging standards, strictly control the source of materials, and avoid the waste of unknown origin from entering the express packaging production process.
Introduce the deposit refund system and build an efficient and collaborative express packaging recycling system.Carton is the most important type of express packaging, and its recycling process has the characteristics of easy identification of categories, high frequency of production and high cost of socialized collection. Internet plus’s new recycling platform can be used to build a deposit recycling system to realize efficient and safe recycling of cartons and open a breakthrough in recycling low-value recyclables. The specific practice is: consumers pay a certain amount of deposit to the express delivery enterprise when purchasing express delivery, and merchants pay the corresponding deposit to the express delivery enterprise when purchasing cartons. When the consumer sends the discarded cartons to the courier recycling machine or manual recycling point, the deposit clearing center will deduct the deposit of the courier cartons from the associated account of the courier company and return it to the consumer. This can promote the separation of express packaging from domestic garbage, enter the closed-loop safe recycling channel, and realize secondary recycling.
Introduce a subsidy system for recycling low-value recyclable materials to smooth the chain of recycling interests.The government is the main beneficiary of the externalization of garbage recycling benefits, so it should study and formulate the accounting policy of urban low-value recyclables subsidies that follow the operating rules of socialist market economy, and further implement the low-value recyclables subsidies to form a long-term operating mechanism for recycling. For example, establish a catalogue of low-value recyclables, calculate the life cycle costs of different types of low-value recyclables, determine subsidy standards, and explore the establishment of three-level financial security in provinces and cities; Make full use of information platform to explore the path of "internet plus recycling". According to the types, quantities and values of low-value recyclable materials recovered daily on the platform, the subsidies that enterprises should enjoy should be accounted, and the profit space of the express packaging recycling system should be broadened to consolidate the recycling effectiveness and mobilize the enthusiasm of merchants and express delivery enterprises to promote green packaging; Promote the effective connection between the classification of domestic waste and the recycling of express packaging resources, and build a recycling system of low-value recyclables from "source classification" to "end resource utilization".
(Author: Du Huanzheng, member of the Expert Advisory Committee of the Inter-Ministerial Joint Conference on the Development of Circular Economy, researcher of Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought Research Center, the supreme leader of Shanghai, and director of the Institute of Circular Economy of Tongji University; Fan Yanan and Xu Yuanrong are both doctoral students in the School of Marxism of Tongji University; Song Shuwei is a master student in this college)
