Food and cosmetics packaging "overwhelmingly overwhelming"?
The introduction of mandatory national standards will bring new changes
Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, September 2 -
Title: food, cosmetics packaging "distracting"?
The introduction of mandatory national standards will bring new changes
Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhao Wenjun
The Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching, and the outer packaging of some luxurious moon cake gift boxes and tea gift boxes is "overwhelming". Consumers can't bear to throw them away and keep them useless.
On the 2nd, the State Administration of Market Supervision issued a newly revised mandatory national standard for "Restricting excessive packaging of goods and requirements for food and cosmetics", which will be implemented in September 2023.
What new changes will the new standard bring to the market?
The relevant person in charge of the Standards and Technology Department of the State Administration for Market Regulation made an interpretation.
Strictly limit the number of packaging layers
At present, some food and cosmetics companies in the market are pursuing high profits by designing and using packaging with too many layers, too large voids, and high costs.
Excessive packaging has gone far beyond the basic functions of the packaging itself. The cost of packaging is attached to consumers, which not only causes waste of resources and environmental pollution, but also damages the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
Chen Hongjun, deputy director of the Standards and Technology Department of the State Administration of Market Supervision, said that research shows that my country's packaging waste accounts for about 30% to 40% of urban domestic waste, and most of these packaging waste are generated by excessive packaging.
Chen Hongjun introduced that the new standard covers 31 categories of food and 16 categories of cosmetics, including tea, wine, cakes, and health foods.
The new standard strictly limits the number of packaging layers. Food and processed products should not exceed three-layer packaging, and other foods and cosmetics should not exceed four-layer packaging; the packaging void ratio limit requirements and calculation methods have been modified, and the external packaging has been increased. Packaging volume inspection, judging rules and necessary space coefficients for different commodities.
For situations such as increasing the initial packaging volume and adding other commodities, it will not be possible to evade supervision in the future.
Set up a two-year transition period for companies and markets
The new standard will be formally implemented on September 1, 2023, setting a two-year transition period for enterprises and the market.
Chen Hongjun introduced that after the release of the new standard, food and cosmetics manufacturers need to design product packaging compliance according to the requirements of the new standard. At the same time, they need to absorb inventory packaging and products for sale, especially cosmetics with a relatively long shelf life. , The circulation link consumption cycle is relatively long.
In order to avoid affecting production and business activities and generating new waste, a two-year transition period has been set up on the basis of extensively soliciting opinions from relevant industrial departments, industry associations and enterprises.
At present, food and cosmetics companies need to carry out standard publicity and implementation training, so that design, R&D and production personnel have a deeper understanding of standard technical content; according to standard requirements, product packaging is designed for compliance, and production is put into use as soon as possible; speed up consumption Inventory packaging and products that have entered the market to ensure that the products produced and sold after the transition period meet the standards.
Chen Hongjun stated that according to the Standardization Law, products and services that do not meet mandatory standards cannot be produced, sold, imported or provided.
After the transition period, food and cosmetics that do not meet the new standards are not allowed to be reproduced and sold on the market.
Therefore, enterprises are called upon to rectify and meet the standards as soon as possible during the transition period.
"One look, two questions, three calculations" to determine whether it is excessive packaging
When buying food and cosmetics products, how can consumers quickly judge whether there is excessive packaging?
According to Wei Hong, deputy director of the Standards and Technology Department of the State Administration for Market Regulation, consumers can simply judge whether goods such as moon cakes are over-packaged through "one look, two questions, and three calculations."
One is to see whether the outer packaging of the product is luxurious packaging and whether the packaging materials are expensive materials.
Second, the new standard strictly limits the number of packaging layers. If the packaging cannot be opened, it is necessary to ask how many layers the packaging has and whether the number of layers meets the requirements.
The third is to measure or estimate the volume of the outer packaging and compare it with the maximum allowable outer packaging volume to see if it exceeds the standard.
Ma Aijin, a professor at the School of Food and Health at Beijing Technology and Business University, said that taking tea packaging as an example, the metal or plastic packaging directly in contact with the tea is the first layer, and the number of packaging layers is the number of packaging layers.
At the same time, the material layer with the inherent properties of the product and the film that closely adheres to the sales package and has a thickness of less than 0.03 mm are not counted.
For example, zong leaves, bamboo tubes, natural or collagen casings, hollow capsules and other material layers belong to the inherent properties of the product.
The new standard clarifies that the volume of food or cosmetics contents is expressed by multiplying the net content by the necessary space factor, and the value of the necessary space factor depends on the product.
Taking alcohol products as an example, the necessary space factor of wine is 13, and the allowable packaging void ratio of a 500ml bottle of liquor does not exceed 30%. It can be calculated that the maximum allowable volume of the outer packaging of this bottle of liquor is 9285.7 cubic centimeters.
Assuming that the length, width and height of the outer packaging of this bottle of wine are respectively 20 cm, 15 cm, and 30 cm, the actual outer packaging volume is 9000 cubic centimeters, which is less than the maximum allowable value and meets the standard requirements.
In addition, the new standard continues to implement the existing standard’s requirements for packaging costs. With the exception of packaging directly in contact with the contents, the cost of all packaging does not exceed 20% of the product’s sales price.
In the next step, the market supervision department will promote the implementation of the new standard. Food and cosmetics companies must strictly implement their main responsibilities in accordance with the requirements of relevant laws, regulations and new standards. At the same time, consumers are encouraged to consciously practice the concept of green consumption and not to purchase or use over-packaged products.