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Package Waste via Express Delivery in China

There are many express packages beside Lotus Pool in Shantou University. This picture is shot on the day after Double 12.

Package waste in Lotus

With continuous internet penetration and increasing smartphone ownership in China, e-commerce has become a major driver of economic growth. Since the products sold have to be packaged and sent through couriers, the proper disposal of package waste such as boxes, plastic tapes and cushions has become a serious problem.

History

- The origin of ecommerce dates back to the invention of electricity, computers, cables and the internet. Ecommerce started its journey in 1991 when the internet was opened to commercial use. In Chinese context, e-commerce became possible when Alibaba was found by Jack Ma in Hangzhou. With the birth of the biggest online shopping platform in 2003, Taobao, online consumption became larger and larger. To meet the huge demand of digital market, Jack Ma has expended his business worldwide through purchases of smaller businesses and cooperation with other companies. Here is the chart on the business transactions through Tmall, one of the Aliaa's online market, on Single's Day, Nov.,11 since 2009, which can show the great transformation of online shopping.

Time	Business Transactions (unit: billion RMB)
11/11/2009	0.052
11/11/2010	0.936
11/11/2011	5.3
11/11/2012	19.1
11/11/2013	36.2
11/11/2014	57.1
11/11/2015	91.2
11/11/2016	120.7

The generation of massive package waste is byproduct of e-commerce.  With the rapid development of technologies and communication network, millions tons of packages are flowing in this globe through e-commerce resulting in some problems particularly in environmental aspect in the meantime.

File:Packaging material.jpg

adhesive tape

Industrial waste collection

PLASTIC PACKING WOVEN NEW ALL SIZE

Amazon Box

Its Damage to Environment

Based on the statistics released by State Post Bureau, the national volume of express business in 2015 had been up to 20,600 million pieces and increased by 40% compared to last year. In addition, analysts predict that the number of packages would reach to around 27,500 million. With the booming development of express e-commerce, it also has brought million tons of package waste and gradually has raised public concerns on the issues of environmental contamination and resources waste.

Here are the seven main packaging waste, including delivery freight notes, adhesive tapes, plastic bags, envelope materials, woven bags, packaging boxes and protective cushions or other stuffing materials. How does all those waste influence our living earth?  Take the adhesive tape for example, its main chemical element is PVC (polyvinyl chloride) which creates damages to the environment. Basically one delivery package needs 1 meter length of adhesive tape on average so in 2015 the total 20,600 million pieces of packages would cover the tapes in 20,600 million meters long in the equivalent of over 300 times round the equator. Moreover, during the production of that large sum of tapes, it would cause 2,800 kg of VOCs (volatile organic compounds). Once those VOCs were to be burned, they would increase air pollution and damages to ozone layer in the formation of smog-like materials.

The Revolution of Green Package

Over-packaging not only would be detrimental to the environment, but raise the huge cost of express enterprises. Therefore, to sustain the express businesses, an effective and environmentally friendly way of packaging, Green Package, should be encouraged and conducted.

The revolution of Green Package is more likely to be a long-term process for different communities involving government, the whole manufacturing chain, e-commerce enterprises and the public to collaborate and make contribution to it.

Positive Outcomes

• Government

In July of 2008, in order to facilitate the development of economy and the industry of green package, National Financial Department released the official document the Management of Funds for Research on Advanced Technology of Packaging Enterprises, to support packaging industry in the invention of sustainable packaging products using new technology.

In 2011, National Financial Department and State Administration of Taxation jointly issued the Catalogue of Comprehensive Utilization of Resources Products & the Preferential Policy of Value-Added Tax (VAT) for Labor Service. This document claims that once the enterprises can fulfill the requirements on comprehensive usage of plastic waste, PVC waste and other packaging materials, they are able to receive 50% tax reimbursement.

Furthermore, Specialized Plan for the Development of National Electronic Commerce Logistics (2016-2022) is approved by national six ministries with the declaration of listing the Green and Recycling Project of E-commerce Logistics as one of the eight key projects.

• Association

China Association of Warehouses and Storage, established in 1997, is a nationwide non-profitable organization embracing research units, social communities and some individual citizens that take responsibility of logistics, warehouses and storage. In the end of 2015, with the instruction of this association, the core leaders in the field of logistics and warehouses jointly drew up the 2016 Report on the Development of China’s State Green Packaging in E-commerce and Logistic that gives detailed statistics analysis and instructional suggestions to the related field.

• Related enterprises

Recently, some packaging manufacturers, express enterprises, e-commerce platforms and other related units have already realized the seriousness of package waste and put forward several possible solutions. These policies might be classified into three main aspects.

• Recycle used packages

Quite a few express companies have already recycled the woven bags to decrease their costs. For instance, Bai Shi Hui Tong express enterprise, the woven bags waste should be reclaimed, separated and recycled in corresponding smaller units. In addition, some e-commerce entrepreneurs like Suning, No.1 Online Stall and so on have paid great attention to the recycling and reused packaging boxes.

• Reduce packaging materials

At present, the utilization of electronic delivery freight notes plays an effective role in the reduction. In the May of 2014, Rookie Website in collaboration with other 14 main express companies created a standardized public platform for electronic delivery freight notes and has opened free application entry for online stalls.

• Use new and environmentally friendly packaging materials

Dangdang Website, one of the main integrated online shopping malls in China, first claimed to introduce the utilization of biodegradable packaging bags in June, 2014.

Difficulties and Corresponding Policies

Although the related logistics enterprises have made much progress in green packaging, currently there still have been many barriers in the way to the sustainable development of express packages.

• Weak awareness of environmental protection

Currently, in the whole manufacturing chain of delivery packaging, whatever the package producers, ecommerce platforms, express enterprises or even customers, plenty of them are still lack of knowledge on green packaging and its significance in environmental protection. Therefore, to spur the sustainability of express businesses, it is necessary to raise public awareness in protecting environment through school education, non-profit advertisement, dissemination of website and other effective ways.

• Weak supervision and conduction of related laws

In terms of low-carbon environmental laws, there have still been many blanks and flaws in China. Although government has authorized the law on energy-saving, the law on renewable energy, circulation economy promotion law and other related ones, it is not detailed and practical enough to conduct these regulations. To tackle this problem, governmental departments are supposed to improve those laws and build a strict evaluation system of energy efficiency as well as the system of rewards and penalties for all participants in the marketing chain of express packaging.    

• Lagging establishment of professional standards

The establishment of professional standards is crucial to guide the development of an organization or even a nation-state. With regard to express enterprises, although China has issued the national standards of express service, quite a few of them are based on the conventions ruled by their inner units instead of clear and unified regulations. Furthermore, with the transformation of express business, some old standards in this field could not keep up with the current production and distribution demands. So some experts suggest that the related departments should better the professional standards and upgrade them to fit in the trend.

Future trend

From the interviews and statistics, Zhang Yingchuan concludes that there might be three mainstreams of green packaging in the future.

• “Intelligentize” the express packaging

With the enhancement of the internet and technologies, researches and development on express packaging gradually turn to automatization and intelligentization. In the case of Da Sen in Suzhou, it has developed intelligent packaging boxes. Due to RFID chip set inside the box, it would be convenient to track every corner that the box passes by in the whole industry chain, from the selection of the goods, packaging, delivery to receivers, which facilitates to manage the whole process. Apart from that, those boxes are set with electric lock to prevent them from theft and safely deliver the packages to the customers.

• “Ecommercialize” the product packaging

Based on the statistics by State Post Office, express packages via e-commerce have taken up 74% in the volume of express business dominated by the online shopping. Therefore, it is suggested that express packaging should be burdened with more functions in sales and transportation instead of the simple role as packaging.

In this field, Amazon in China has made a move that it encourages the online sellers to package their online products using their specialized sign and simplified design. It has many advantages for both the producers and sellers: the direct delivery of goods to the consumers in the prevention of second-packaging; the reduction of costs in color printing, coating and so forth.

• Integrate packaging with warehouse and distribution

 The ongoing unity of logistics and storage has promoted the integration of packaging and the two above. In this system, express companies could pack their products reasonably based on their own needs resulting in the large avoidance of over-packaging. Recently, a few enterprises via e-commerce has reclaimed the package waste and reuse them, which benefited by the smooth operation of those processes.

Measures of Overseas Green Package

The industry of logistics overseas like in America, Germany, France and Japan develops decades earlier than China. So learning from some effective overseas methods might enlighten the updating path of sustainable development of logistics in China. Here is the table on the main measures to dispose package waste in three typical countries.

Measure/Country	USA	Germany	Japan
Strict laws on packaging and green logistics	YES	YES	YES
Package labeling with environmental marks	YES	YES	YES
Degradable materials	YES	YES	YES
Recycling	YES	YES	YES

References

#See also

• Sustainable packaging
• Packaging and labeling

External links

• e-commerce
• Alibaba
• Tmall
• Jack Ma
• Taobao
• polyvinyl chloride
• volatile organic compounds

Category:Ecommerce Category:Packaging Category:Waste Category:Logistics