For most people, online shopping has become an indispensable part of life. Accordingly, in recent years, the number of express packaging waste has grown rapidly, becoming the primary increment of urban domestic waste and an important source of environmental pollution. According to preliminary estimation, the express industry in China consumes more than 9 million tons of paper waste and about 1.8 million tons of plastic waste every year, with a rapid growth trend. In mega cities, the garbage increment of express packaging has accounted for 93% of the domestic garbage increment, and the growth trend remains unchanged. In the future, China’s express industry will continue to maintain a rapid growth trend, and the output of express packaging waste will also continue to increase, bringing severe challenges to urban domestic waste treatment.
Express package belongs to the low value recyclable material in domestic garbage. Such articles have a certain recycling value, but due to high recycling costs and insufficient profit margins, it is impossible to achieve effective recycling by relying solely on market forces. It is necessary to build a large-scale and systematic governance system to make up for the loss of interest 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 to fight the battle against pollution through the “green and recycling” transformation of express packaging.
Current situation: the reduction has achieved certain benefits, and the recycling problem remains to be solved
Corrugated boxes and plastic bags account for nearly 80% of the total. From the perspective of packaging composition, at present, China’s express packaging mainly consists of corrugated boxes and plastic bags. According to the Research Report on Generation Characteristics and Management Status of China’s Express Packaging Wastes, express packaging materials mainly include corrugated cartons (44.03%), plastic bags (33.5%), bagged cartons (9.47%), document bags (5.05%), etc.
The average weight of a corrugated box is about 329g, of which corrugated paper accounts for 92.4%. Other indirect packaging materials, such as plastic film, express waybill and plastic bag, account for 5.5%, 1.3% and 0.8% respectively. In 2018, the consumption of corrugated paper in China will reach 8.233 million tons. If not controlled, the resources and environment will face great pressure. In 2018, the consumption of plastic packaging materials in China was about 851800 tons, and 73% of plastic packaging materials were directly recycled from waste, showing gray or black; 25.6% of plastic packaging is produced by mixing waste materials and a small amount of raw materials, which is generally yellow green; The pure white express packaging plastic bags completely produced from raw materials (PP or PE, etc.) accounted for only 1.5%. Most of the wastes are of unknown origin, which will also cause environmental pollution in the production process. In 2020, the state issued relevant regulations, upgrading the “plastic restriction order” to “plastic prohibition order”, which on the one hand reduced the use of plastic packaging, on the other hand stimulated the demand of the express industry for corrugated paper. It is estimated that by 2025, the potential demand for paper express packaging will increase by 16.59 billion pieces. The challenges and pressures faced by China’s resources and environment cannot be underestimated.
The recovery rate is low, and the overall recovery rate is less than 20%. After the express package is discarded, the packaging box can be partially recycled, but the recovery rate is less than 50%; The recovery rate of plastic components such as fillers and tapes in express packaging is almost zero, making the overall recovery rate of express packaging less than 20%.
The recovery rate of plastic foam box is only 70% ~ 80% due to the difficulty of recovery, high cost of recycling and insufficient profit of recycled materials. Due to the low recycling price and the plastic tape and waybill pasted on the express plastic packaging bags, which account for about 95% of the total, the existing recycling channels cannot handle them, and they will eventually be incinerated or buried together with domestic waste. Some auxiliary packaging materials also face the dilemma of large usage and low recovery rate. For example, for marketing reasons, or to avoid damage during transportation, businesses tend to use large cartons for packaging, and add a large number of plastic filling materials such as bubble bags and bubble columns into the package, and excessive use of tape winding packaging. The vast majority of these auxiliary filling materials enter the domestic garbage, bringing great pressure to the sanitation system.
Enterprises that invest too much are not active
The biggest problem for enterprises is that they have no motivation. Take express delivery enterprises as an example. The recycling and recycling of packaging materials need to build a recycling system, which requires a lot of manpower and material resources. At present, the competition in the express delivery industry is very fierce. The main energy of express delivery enterprises is focused on the main business, and they have no mind to recycle packaging materials. In addition, the recycling process is also difficult to operate. For example, when the courier recycles the packaging materials, he or she will worry about affecting the efficiency, and the franchise outlets will not cooperate because of space occupation and other issues. “The biggest problem is that, due to the immaturity of the early market, the enterprise’s investment is greater than the cost savings brought by recycling packaging materials. Therefore, even if the price of raw materials rises, express enterprises will not easily spend huge manpower and material resources to promote the big project of packaging materials recycling.”
From the perspective of the recycling situation of express packaging waste, there is still much room for improvement in the existing recycling system of renewable resources in China. Due to the imperfect laws related to environmental protection packaging in China, the development of environmental protection technology innovation is restrained to a certain extent. At present, a relatively complete legal system has not been formed in the whole life cycle of express packaging, such as design, production, consumption and resource utilization.
Suggestion: Restructure the recycling system based on convenience and efficiency
From the perspective of laws and regulations, we should do a good job in top-level design, formulate express packaging regulatory standards and implementation systems. Specifically, it can include: specify the material use standard from the source of packaging to improve the environmental protection level of packaging; Businesses are required to uniformly use express packaging made of environment-friendly materials and degradable materials, and establish a standard express packaging manufacturer information base; The extended producer responsibility system for express packaging was introduced, with express enterprises as the main body to assume the responsibility for product recycling, recycling and final disposal; Enterprises implement green design and design express packages that are easy to recycle; Strengthen the standardized management of market access, intensify the attack on enterprises that do not meet the green express packaging standards, strictly control the source of materials, and avoid unknown waste from entering the express packaging production process.
In addition to the spontaneous behavior of enterprises, the promotion of the government is also very important. The insiders pointed out that the government should establish a recycling chain from the aspects of legislation, supervision and market. The government can introduce incentive policies, give some subsidies to enterprises, and establish the responsibility system of the whole link from the aspects of legislation, supervision and market, so that the entire industrial chain, including express enterprises, can take responsibility.
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