"Hard constraints" promote the "green" express packaging
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The express industry in my country consumes more than 9 million tons of paper waste and 1.8 million tons of plastic waste each year.
Affected by factors such as cost, there are still challenges in the promotion and application of green packaging.
With the early launch of "Double 11", the issue of express packaging has once again become a hot topic.
Recently, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Development and Reform Commission, the Department of Ecology and Environment, and other departments jointly issued the "Implementation Plan on Further Strengthening Plastic Pollution Control", emphasizing that the entire region should further strengthen the control of plastic pollution, establish and improve a long-term management mechanism for plastic products, and green express packaging Be included in the scope of governance.
The prosperity of e-commerce has brought about the prosperity of the logistics industry, and the prosperity of the logistics industry has caused more and more packaging materials and express delivery waste.
In response to massive packaging pollution control, multiple departments have intensively deployed and issued relevant notices and documents.
Various localities are also speeding up their actions, and one after another "plastic limit" timetables have been introduced.
In fact, the greening of express packaging has developed to a certain extent, and the issue of recyclable packaging is still a major problem in the industry.
"Mandatory" standards promote industry changes
This year, the State Administration for Market Regulation and other eight departments jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Strengthening the Standardization of Express Green Packaging" to deploy China's express green packaging standardization.
The opinion puts forward that, by 2022, we will strive to establish a strict and binding express green packaging standard system, gradually improve the express green packaging governance system that coordinates standards and laws and policies, and promote standards to become a "hard constraint" for express green packaging to support express delivery. Significant results have been achieved in packaging reduction, greening, and recyclability.
“One express delivery must have a carton or plastic bag, a plastic bag inside, and a large amount of bubble filling material if it is fragile, wrapped with several loops of tape, and a waybill.” Wang Minjun, a citizen of Urumqi, is engaged in micro business. For many years, she had to disassemble and reassemble countless couriers every day, “try to reuse as much as possible, but the courier garbage still generates a lot of waste every day.”
Relevant data show that my country’s express delivery industry consumes more than 9 million tons of paper waste and about 1.8 million tons of plastic waste each year, and they are growing rapidly. The impact of packaging waste on the environment cannot be ignored.
It is understood that the packaging waste is often mainly paper and plastic, and the raw materials are mostly derived from wood and petroleum.
Take express packaging as an example. Commonly used transparent tapes, plastic bags and other materials are mainly made of polyvinyl chloride. It takes hundreds of years to degrade when buried in the soil, which will cause irreversible damage to the environment.
In response to the problem of express garbage, many places are also speeding up actions, and have introduced a timetable for "plastic limit".
Guangdong Province proposed that by the end of 2022, the province's express delivery will ban non-degradable plastic packaging bags.
Shaanxi Province proposed that in 2020, Xi'an City (including Xixian New District) will take the lead in banning and restricting the production and sales of some plastic products.
Jiangsu Province proposed that shopping malls, supermarkets, pharmacies, bookstores and other places in Nanjing's urban built-up areas, as well as food and beverage take-out services and various exhibition activities, prohibit the use of non-degradable plastic bags, and the fair shall regulate and restrict the use of non-degradable plastic bags.
Xinjiang emphasized that by the end of 2025, the use of non-degradable plastic packaging bags, plastic tapes, and disposable plastic woven bags will be prohibited in postal express outlets across the region.
Layout "Green Express"
According to data from the professional version of Tianyancha, there are currently nearly 1.55 million companies in my country whose names include "carton, packaging", or their business scope includes "carton, packaging bags, packaging products, packaging materials", and their status is active, existing, or moving in. , Packaging-related companies that moved out.
my country currently has 440,000 packaging-related companies with "environmental protection" in their business scope, accounting for nearly 30%.
It is worth noting that the annual growth of my country's environmental packaging-related enterprises has increased year by year, and the growth rate has remained above 20% for four consecutive years.
Among them, among the packaging-related companies newly added every year in my country, at least 20% of the companies' business scope includes "environmental protection".
"The previous handwritten parcels are now placed directly on the mobile phone, and the time for picking up the parcel is agreed upon, which is particularly convenient." said Chen Rong, a Urumqi citizen.
Although this change is a gradual process, for Wang Minjun, who has to send things every day, he feels deeper. “It is much more convenient to implement electronic face orders. Now the tape for express packaging is also narrower than before. One or so."
In fact, whether it is a face sheet or express delivery tape, it is part of the package "slimming" and green development.
"We encourage the use of environmentally friendly express tape to reduce the overall consumption." The relevant person in charge of Xinjiang Jiangnan Shentong Logistics Co., Ltd. told reporters that in express packaging, large particle gas fillers are used to replace small particle fillers and degradable packaging bags are used. , Carry out measures such as reduction of express packaging, no secondary packaging of e-commerce parts, etc., to make express packages "slim and green".
Making express packaging "greener and thinner" has become a common goal of the industry.
While the policy is advancing, major express companies have already taken active actions.
It is understood that as early as 2016, JD.com established the first logistics packaging laboratory in the e-commerce industry to reduce material costs by compressing the size and area of packaging consumables; replacing old materials with more environmentally friendly new materials to make packaging recyclable use.
In 2017, Tmall established the "Green Brand Alliance".
Established express companies such as Shentong, Zhongtong, and Yuantong have begun to experiment with green and environmentally friendly turnover bags with chips that can be reused 20-100 times in recent years.
Bian Zuodong, deputy director of the Market Supervision Department of the State Post Bureau, said: “The green application of express packaging requires everyone to work together. I hope that users will support the green recycling of express packaging. Basically intact cartons can be recycled and reused to achieve the best use of materials."
Need to work together from all walks of life
Express delivery and e-commerce companies have made a lot of efforts to make express delivery "greener and thinner", but in interviews, many citizens still believe that there is still huge waste in express packaging.
It is understood that most of the recyclable boxes introduced by many companies need to be directly recycled by the courier during delivery, that is, users need to unpack them on the spot, but the actual implementation effect is not good.
The recycling of express boxes currently needs to rely on outlets to allow users to send them to the recycling points themselves. The effect is also limited.
Xiao Shuping, general manager of Quanzhou Wangwucheng Logistics Technology Co., Ltd., said that logistics companies are actively promoting the greening of express packaging, and packaging is gradually improving and improving, but there are some difficulties in promotion.
In daily life, recyclable packaging and packaging recycling boxes are still hard to find.
Merchants consider the most cost when packaging. The difficulty of promoting green packaging lies in the high cost.
"On a certain platform, there is a cardboard box that can be torn without tape. The price of a three-layer carton shop on the 12th is 1.2 yuan, while the price of a normal carton of the same model and thickness is 0.39 yuan, which is nearly four times the price." Wang Minjun Say.
Industry insiders pointed out that due to cost and other factors, there are still challenges in the promotion and application of green packaging, which require the joint efforts of all sectors of society.
The market demand space is occupied by traditional materials, and environmental protection new materials are not widely used are one of the reasons for the higher cost. Only when the green packaging has economies of scale, can the cost be reduced and attract more enterprises to enter this area. field.
Li Ting, an associate researcher at the Rural Development Research Institute of Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, believes that the government and express industry associations should implement industry standards for express package packaging, requiring companies to speed up the use and recycling of green packaging and environmentally friendly packaging, and give priority to environmentally friendly packaging.
Take measures such as tax reduction and exemption to encourage express companies, logistics companies, and renewable resource utilization companies to increase the recovery of express packaging and increase the reuse rate of express packaging.
Wu Duosi