Where is the difference in the "plastic reduction" of express takeaway?
The survey shows that China’s express delivery industry generates about 1.80 million tons of plastic waste every year. At the same time, food delivery is also the "hardest hit area" of plastic packaging, often "bag in bag". The "white waste" brought by express delivery has become a regulatory pain point.
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"Now the express delivery is piled up like a mountain, and half of the packaging is plastic." On November 12, Liu Shan (a pseudonym), a courier brother in Fengtai, Beijing, was worried about the resulting plastic waste pollution while running around for the seemingly endless express delivery.
The rapid development of online shopping has brought further prosperity to the express delivery industry. On November 11, on the day of the shopping carnival, with 675 million pieces of express delivery, there were 675 million express packages.
Zhang Deyuan, deputy director of the Research Office of the National Development and Reform Commission’s Institute of Macroeconomics and System Reform, said in an interview with a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Network that the total number of express deliveries this year is expected to reach 80 billion, of which about 20% are packed in plastic bags. The "white waste" brought by online shopping has become a pain point for the supervision of the "plastic restriction order".
Where is the difficulty in implementing the "plastic restriction order"? According to a survey conducted by the official Weibo of China Youth Daily, 59.7% of respondents preferred "changing public habits", 16.8% of respondents believed that "it is difficult to develop and promote new materials", 12.7% of respondents chose "shopping costs increase", and 10.7% of respondents said that "new fields are difficult to supervise".
"Compared to cartons, plastic bags at 0.3 yuan each are cheaper"
Zhu Wen (a pseudonym), the brother of Beijing Express, said that among the more than 200 express deliveries he delivered on November 11, more than 100 were packaged in plastic, mainly some clothing, quilts, shoes, etc.
The reporter visited and found that the use of plastic packaging in the outer packaging of express deliveries delivered by many couriers accounted for 30% to 50%. Some express deliveries using carton packaging also place plastic fillers in the boxes to ensure the safety of goods transportation, and most of them are sealed with tape outside the boxes.
When the courier arrives in the hands of consumers, it often goes through multiple processes. In order to prevent damage, some merchants will choose to pack multiple layers or even over-pack before sending the courier. Most of these packaging materials are purchased nearby or at a low price. Search an e-commerce platform, 100 35 × 45cm courier packaging bags are 14.2 yuan, and in some stores a packaging bag is as low as 0.039 yuan.
In addition to express delivery, takeaway is also the "hardest hit area" of plastic packaging, and "bag in bag" situations often occur. According to the reporter’s observation, consumers order a rice noodle on the takeaway platform, and the powder and soup are packed in two plastic boxes separately. In order to prevent spillage, some merchants also wrap a layer of plastic wrap on the soup box, put it in a separate plastic bag, and then put everything in a large plastic bag.
Some couriers give preference to plastic bags. Zhu Wen said that when sending, he hardly uses cartons, and probably uses more than 10 bags a day to pack for consumers. On the one hand, plastic bags are portable, and on the other hand, they are based on cost considerations. For example, for a 12 yuan courier, he can get 2 yuan service fee, of which the packaging fee needs to be paid by himself. "Compared with cartons, plastic bags are generally cheaper at 0.3 yuan each."
"Plastic reduction" has a long way to go. According to the statistics of the Plastics Recycling Professional Committee of the China Plastics Association, our country uses about 3 billion plastic bags every day. As of 2019, the annual use of plastic bags exceeds 4 million tons. Another survey shows that China’s express delivery industry generates about 1.80 million tons of plastic waste every year.
Where is the difficulty of "plastic reduction" in the field of e-commerce?
Since the implementation of the "plastic restriction order" in 2008, "plastic reduction" has been running for 11 years. In recent years, as emerging business forms, e-commerce, takeaway and other fields have once become "blank areas" of the "plastic restriction order".
On January 19 this year, the "Opinions on Further Strengthening the Control of Plastic Pollution" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), known as the upgraded "Plastic Limit Order", was released, and the takeaway and e-commerce fields were officially included in the scope of the "Plastic Limit Order". The opinion also clearly states that by the end of 2022, postal express outlets in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other provinces and cities will first ban the use of non-degradable plastic packaging bags, disposable plastic woven bags, etc., to reduce the use of non-degradable plastic tape. By the end of 2025, postal express outlets across the country will be covered.
In contrast to the huge amount of use, the collection rate of plastic bags is very low. On November 11 last year, the "Research Report on the Characteristics and Management of China’s Express Packaging Waste" jointly released by environmental protection organizations Greenpeace pointed out that in 2018, our country’s express delivery industry consumed a total of 851,800 tons of plastic packaging materials. Due to the difficulty of recycling plastic express packaging waste, high regeneration costs and low regeneration profits, about 99% of our country’s express packaging waste plastics (mass ratio) were mixed into domestic waste.
Consumers rarely pay directly for express packaging, which affects the "plastic reduction" in the field of express delivery. Some netizens said that most of the time online shopping is free shipping, compared with supermarket shopping, the feeling of using plastic bags is not obvious, and they rarely pay attention to plastic waste in the e-commerce field.
"The difficulty is that it is too scattered." Zhang Deyuan said that compared with ordinary supermarkets, the plastic packaging users in the e-commerce field are mostly small merchants. This group is large in number, scattered in main body, difficult to supervise and expensive to enforce.
At present, the alternative product Research & Development production of plastic packaging is still not mature enough, and the circulation efficiency of domestic express packaging is not high. Zhang Deyuan takes degradable plastic bags as an example. The cycle of domestic express packaging from procurement, warehousing to circulation is about 30 days, which is a certain gap compared with foreign countries. For example, Amazon’s logistics efficiency is about 13.5 days. Long storage time of degradable plastic bags may lead to performance degradation and affect the use effect.
Some netizens expressed that they wanted to do their part to reduce white pollution, but had to use plastic bags in the absence of suitable alternatives.
At the end of last year, an online poll conducted by China Youth Daily showed that 86.6% of respondents felt that there was a waste of plastic bags in the e-commerce sector. 53.0% of respondents said they were willing to pay a certain amount for e-commerce to use reusable environmentally friendly packaging.
Press the "acceleration button" for "plastic reduction" in many places.
Faced with the big problem of "white pollution", various places have continued to make efforts on "plastic reduction". So far, more than 20 provinces have issued an upgraded version of the "plastic restriction order", pressing the "acceleration button" for "plastic reduction".
Among them, six major industries such as food delivery and e-commerce have become the key "plastic reduction" objects of Beijing’s new version of the "plastic restriction order". On November 10, the "Beijing Plastic Pollution Control Action Plan (2020-2025) (exposure draft) " released by Beijing pointed out that by the end of this year, the city’s postal express and e-commerce distribution outlets will have a "slimming tape" packaging ratio of 90%. By the end of 2022, the city’s postal express outlets will ban the use of non-degradable plastic packaging bags, woven bags, etc. By the end of 2025, the city’s postal express outlets will ban the use of non-degradable plastic tape, and the responsibility will be implemented to specific units. This is also known as the "strictest plastic restriction order" by netizens.
The "plastic reduction" in the field of e-commerce is a systematic project that requires platforms, merchants, and consumers to work together to create a green logistics system from the production, procurement, use, and recycling of plastic packaging.
"Platform companies should be leaders in the control of plastic pollution." Zhang Deyuan believes that platform companies in the fields of e-commerce, express delivery, and takeaway should strengthen the management of merchants settled on the platform, formulate alternative implementation plans for reducing the amount of disposable plastic products, and implement "green merchant leadership plans" and "green packaging points activities" to encourage and guide merchants to take the initiative to reduce the use of disposable plastic packaging. The postal express industry should increase the use of green packaging and recyclable packaging. Operating merchants should be "executors" of green consumption patterns.
At the same time, the research and development of alternative products will usher in new opportunities. Zhang Deyuan suggested that express delivery companies and packaging material production and development companies should strengthen innovation. At present, some companies are developing degradable plastic bags.
On the consumer side, you can consider adopting a separate pricing and charging strategy. Zhang Deyuan said that consumers spend money and have a clear sense of use, which can indirectly enhance consumers’ environmental awareness. If plastic packaging is used, it should be classified for subsequent disposal and resource utilization.
In addition, Zhang Deyuan also suggested that while enjoying the convenience brought by modern business models, consumers should continuously raise their awareness of environmental protection and minimize the use of disposable plastic utensils when ordering takeout and online shopping.
