In the huge recyclable garbage sorting center, more than 20 workers are busy.
Beside them are piles of cardboard boxes.
"After the Spring Festival, the most recyclable garbage is the New Year gift packaging cartons. The first month is almost over, and there is still an endless stream."
When visiting relatives and friends, the Chinese pay attention to courtesy.
However, the reporter's investigation found that there was excessive packaging for many years of ceremony.
● Receive gifts ●
A big box with a few small cookies
"I've never seen such an exaggerated package." Xiao Tan will never forget the annual gift he received.
Xiaotan's Spring Festival, like most people, eats reunion dinner and visits relatives.
The exaggerated packaging he said was a large cardboard box about 50 cm long, 10 cm wide and 40 cm high.
"On the surface of the carton, 'Daily Nut' is written in large letters, and the pattern is also a variety of nuts."
When he opened the "Daily Nut" gift box, he was stunned.
"It's not nuts, it's biscuits, not many, just take out a handful. About 80% of the entire box is air."
Xiao Tan carefully looked at the words on the carton and found four small words - "Assorted Biscuits".
It's a bit inappropriate to transfer it out, so keep it for yourself.
"It's said that courtesy is light and affectionate. In fact, I think it's good to give cookies. There's no need to use such a big box, it's a bit wasteful."
There are many New Year gifts, some of which are simple in packaging and some are very complicated.
Xiao Tan said that between relatives and friends, the connection is emotional, in fact, do not care so much about face.
"I hope the merchants don't do this kind of packaging, why bother. Can you just use a biscuit bag to sell the biscuits? Maybe because of this big cardboard box, the biscuits can be sold a little more expensively?"
The dismantled gift boxes were packaged together by Xiao Tan and sold to the recycling station.
He thinks that there is nothing wrong with sending this big box by relatives and friends, but it is a bad trend for businesses to guide in the direction of "over-emphasis on packaging".
"It's all relatives, so there's no need to do those kinds of packaging." Master Tian, who lives in Dongguan Nanli, Changping District, said that during the Chinese New Year, his family received many relatives and friends, and most of the gifts they received were mostly affordable items.
"Eggs, milk, cooking oil... There's no excessive packaging. We don't talk about that among our relatives."
At two o'clock in the afternoon, Master Tian invited a recycler from "Love Sorting" to come and sell the recyclables saved during the Chinese New Year.
There are many gift boxes, but they are not exaggerated.
"Maybe the egg carton is a little bigger, but it's not too much."
In Dongguan Nanli Community, the reporter followed the recyclers to visit several households. Most of them said that the annual gift exchanges are mainly based on benefits, and there is no need to pursue packaging.
● Recycling ●
Dismantling the packaging cardboard box has become a problem
At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, near Zhongshili Community in Dongcheng District, Sun Feifei, a recycling worker from "Green Cat", was sorting out the cartons that had just been collected.
In the trading point hut, which covers an area of about eight square meters, half of the space is occupied by cardboard boxes.
Flat cardboard boxes are stacked together from the ground to the roof.
"Every year when the Spring Festival comes, there are more cardboard boxes." This past Spring Festival, Feifei Sun didn't return to his hometown of Anhui.
The door-to-door recycling business has been suspended, and the work to help the community deal with kitchen waste has not stopped.
Officially go to work on the seventh day of the first lunar month.
Feifei Fei also resumed the door-to-door recycling business.
Every household saved up recyclables for a holiday, and all of them burst out.
The trading point is called for transfer almost every day, but it is still filled up very quickly.
Drink bottles, whether plastic or metal, can be placed in the bag after stepping on it; the cardboard box needs to be opened and folded by Feifei with bare hands.
"A cardboard box is too difficult to dismantle," she said, tearing and kicking to get a cardboard box.
Some are used to hold fruits, such as imported cherries, which are afraid of bumps during long-distance transportation. It is understandable to use heavy cartons.
Some things, Feifei Feifei didn't quite understand.
"Look at this, it's very hard, and the sound is crisp when you knock it." She picked up a red gift box in her hand, narrowed her eyes, and took a closer look, "It's clothes, a suit of long clothes and long trousers, maybe it's the year of life. ."
● Data ●
Dozens of tons of cartons were collected in five days of recycling
The recyclables at the delivery point will be sent to various sorting centers.
The "Love Sorting" sorting center, located near Changcui Road in Changping District, has more than 20 staff members sorting garbage around the clock.
When the reporter visited last week, he saw a mountain of recyclables in the sorting center.
Sorters work non-stop in front of sorting conveyors.
Cardboard boxes, beverage bottles, metals, clothing, etc., are sorted into different recycling baskets.
They were busy from morning till late at night.
Even so, the piles of recyclables accumulated after the year are still not digested.
The largest pile looks 10 meters high from a distance.
When I took a closer look, many red cartons were printed with the words "gift", "blessing" and "New Year". Some were fruit packaging, some were snack packaging, obviously New Year gifts.
According to reports, there are more than 200 tons of recyclables accumulated in the sorting center, which is only accumulated in the past 5 days.
Among them, cartons are the first category, accounting for more than 30% of the total, with more than 60 tons.
For recycling companies, does a huge number of cartons mean huge profits?
"It can't be calculated so simply." Xu Yuanhong, general manager of Ai Classification, introduced that the labor cost of sorting is very high, and not all cartons are valuable.
"The yellow cardboard packaged in refrigerators and TVs is the most valuable, but the packaging for New Year's gifts is not that kind." Xu Yuanhong firmly believes that excessive packaging of New Year's gifts is a huge waste.
● Initiative ●
Packaging reduction starts from the source of production
For a long time, in the field of garbage recycling, we advocate reduction and resource utilization from the source, and the waste of New Year gift packaging is contrary to this concept.
"Now our living standards have improved, and we have more festivals. Not only the Spring Festival, but also various festivals. Everyone likes to give gifts, which are beautifully packaged or even luxuriously packaged. These packages are often not easy to recycle." Xu Yuanhong said , should advocate the extension of producer responsibility, strictly limit packaging from the production side, and encourage the production of simple and easy-to-recycle packaging.
Liu Quan, chairman of "Green Cat", agrees with Xu Yuanhong's view that starting from the source is the most effective way to effectively curb the waste of gift boxes such as New Year's gifts.
"Some of the dried fruit and tea gift boxes are very complicated. The outside is a paper bag, the inside is a carton, and then it is lined with flannel, padded with plastic, and things are placed in metal cans, and some even use wood. This is very inconvenient to recycle. It’s an amazing waste to accumulate.” Liu Quan said that at the recycling end, only cartons, metals, and plastics can be recycled well at present, and general recycling sites cannot handle wood and cloth.
With the continuous advancement of garbage sorting and recycling, some enterprises have begun to pay attention to the problem of garbage reduction at the source of production.
In the past, an important part of beverage bottle recycling was de-labeling. The cleaner the label and adhesive were separated, the higher the purity of the bottle flakes and the higher the quality of downstream products.
Recently, the first domestic unlabeled drink was launched in a low-key manner.
In addition, more and more companies are beginning to commit to green, reduced and recyclable packaging.
"For enterprises, it is necessary to focus on green packaging, reduction and recycling. For ordinary consumers, it is to change some consumption concepts. Pay more attention to the intrinsic value of gifts, and do not excessively pursue the external packaging of gifts." Liu Quan said that while the relevant laws and regulations are not yet sound, the consumption behavior of consumers will also affect enterprises. When everyone no longer pursues flashy packaging, the waste of gift box packaging such as New Year gifts will gradually improve. .
Our reporter Sun Yi