How Far Does Green Express Delivery Still Have to Go?

Under the dual carbon strategy, the problem of excessive express packaging is still commonplace. Data shows that China's express delivery industry generates more than 9 million tonnes of waste paper and 1.8 million tonnes of plastic waste every year, posing a challenge to environmental protection. Excessive express packaging may seem a "commonplace" topic, but behind it lies a persistent industry problem. How to put circular packaging into practice and carry "green" through to the end has become a difficult problem facing the express delivery industry.

When can "excessive packaging" travel light?

Mr. Zhang, who lives in Shijiazhuang, Hebei, recently had some sweet troubles. His family sent him a lot of fresh produce from his hometown. Looking at the carton wrapped up tightly with layer after layer, he told the reporter: "I was very happy to receive the package from home, but opening the box was really troublesome. The large carton contained a thick layer of plastic film fixed with tape, and inside was a foam plastic box, also tightly wound with tape. It was indeed very sturdy, but it was also too wasteful."

What Mr. Zhang experienced happens often when sending express deliveries. Protection is the primary function of express packaging, preventing damage caused by handling and squeezing during long-distance transport. At the same time, express packaging also has the role of keeping goods looking good and winning buyers' favor. Surveys show that China's express delivery industry generates more than 9 million tonnes of waste paper and 1.8 million tonnes of plastic waste every year, bringing huge challenges to environmental protection.

Targeted measures and sustained efforts in packaging governance

As early as 2009, China issued relevant policies to carry out special governance of express packaging, and subsequently introduced a series of policies for regulation. In September 2020, China clearly proposed the goals of "carbon peaking" by 2030 and "carbon neutrality" by 2060, advocating a lifestyle of "green, environmentally friendly and low carbon", accelerating the pace of reducing carbon emissions, and achieving economic development and green transformation in parallel.

This year, the State Post Bureau continued to move forward. At a special press conference held on February 22, it clearly stated that it would implement the "9218" green development project, accelerate the green and low-carbon transformation of express packaging, and achieve by the end of the year a rate of 90% for e-commerce express items no longer being repackaged, deeply advance the two governance efforts on excessive packaging and plastic pollution, reach 1 billion mail and express items using recyclable express packaging, and recycle and reuse 800 million corrugated cartons in good condition. After the policies were issued, local post bureaus responded actively. Guangdong, Shanxi, Heilongjiang and many other provinces and cities introduced relevant regulations on express packaging, for example: limiting the width of the tape used for packing, and lowering the proportion of non-degradable plastic packaging bags used...

With the rapid development of e-commerce, China's express delivery business volume has advanced by leaps and bounds, growing 120-fold from 1 billion items in 2006 to 120 billion items in 2022. According to data released by the State Post Bureau, from January to April this year, the postal industry completed a cumulative 46.80 billion items of delivery business, up 13.7% year on year. Among them, express delivery business volume reached a cumulative 37.1 billion items, up 17.0% year on year. The huge express delivery business volume, while driving economic take-off, has brought huge environmental pollution problems and caused a great waste of recyclable resources. The non-recyclable tape used each year can circle the equator 425 times.

Recycling 1 tonne of waste paper can produce about 0.85 tonnes of new paper, save 17 large trees, save 3 cubic meters of landfill space, use 240 kg less soda ash, reduce pollution emissions from papermaking by 75%, and save 40%-50% of energy consumption in papermaking. Each sheet of paper can be recycled at least twice. China's waste paper recovery rate is only 20%-30%, and 6 million tonnes of waste paper is lost every year, equivalent to wasting 1 million to 3 million mu of forest resources.

Active response demonstrates corporate responsibility

Moving from extensive to intensive development of the circular economy is a major issue facing the express packaging industry, and express delivery companies need to bear important responsibilities in it. When companies recycle old packaging boxes, part can be used directly, and the other part can be centrally processed to save costs.

JD Logistics launched its carton recycling program in 2016, with the recycling scope covering JD express stations nationwide. JD Logistics' circular packaging business relies on an integrated forward and reverse logistics system to complete recycling and reuse. After the courier receives the package in person, it is brought back to the outlet and returned to the warehouse via reverse-haul vehicles for reuse. To implement the "9218" project, JD Logistics vigorously promotes factory-direct packaging, issues platform incentives, and guides upstream brand enterprises to carry out green packaging transformation at the source, with factory packaging and express packaging adopting an integrated structural design; relying on big data and algorithms for packaging selection and modification optimization and intelligent recommendation of consumables, improving packaging space utilization and avoiding excessive packaging;

developing new packaging materials to replace traditional single-use plastics, such as paper instead of plastic and recyclable express packaging bags; carrying out C-end circular packaging sharing pilots; and encouraging couriers to recycle cartons for reuse. "In the future, JD Logistics will promote standardized circular boxes and a shared recycling model, establish end-point recycling infrastructure to solve the difficult problem of empty box recycling, and after recycling by a third-party circular packaging service platform, allocate resources in a unified way to achieve rapid turnover of circular packaging." Duan Yanjian, project head of JD Logistics' Qingliu Plan, said this in an interview with a reporter from Modern Logistics News.

During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, China Post Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as China Post) fully launched its green action, carrying out three major projects of green packaging, green transport and green finance, and six demonstration actions including green e-commerce and green buildings, continuously improving its green development system. Since the beginning of this year, China Post has issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for Green Post", requiring the promotion of the industry's "9218" key project, the deep advancement of the two special governance efforts on excessive packaging and plastic pollution, reaching 100 million mail and express items using recyclable packaging nationwide, and recycling and reusing 80 million corrugated cartons nationwide.

Since the beginning of this year, the Shijiazhuang Branch of China Post Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Shijiazhuang Post) has handled an average of 580,000 express items per day, an increase of 9.3% over last year. The promotion of green express packaging has not only been highly effective in environmental protection, but has also continued to develop in terms of reduction and recyclability, bringing both quantitative and qualitative improvements to the postal enterprise's economy.

When mentioning the implementation of circular express packaging application in Shijiazhuang, the head of Shijiazhuang Post said in an interview with a reporter from Modern Logistics News: "In 2022, Shijiazhuang Post recycled and reused a total of 1,062,400 corrugated cartons throughout the year, and equipped all 298 postal outlets (including agency points) and 36 collection and delivery stations across the city with express packaging waste recycling devices, strengthened poster and advertising video promotion at outlets, and at the same time called on 3,000 social stations to participate in carton recycling publicity activities."

"He said that in the future Shijiazhuang Post will deeply promote the green transformation of express packaging and green transport, and advance green finance and green low-carbon development. By the end of 2023, the proportion of degradable plastic packaging bags and plastic tape used in the city will reach more than 75%, and by the end of 2024 the goal of a full ban on plastics will be achieved."

A century-long undertaking: the road to green packaging has a long way to go

When enterprises recycle express cartons, the practical problem they face is how to achieve the reverse flow of express packaging. The quantity of express packaging recyclables is large and scattered, making recycling somewhat difficult; recycling at outlets is a relatively easy method. Customers often tear off the packaging after picking up their express items, and through the publicity of outlet staff, their willingness to participate in carton recycling activities is relatively strong. However, there is a certain difficulty in recycling cartons after delivery by couriers and in recycling cartons at social outlets. Customers and outlet operators, out of concern for privacy or consideration of economic returns, are mostly unwilling to hand express cartons directly to express companies for recycling.

In the process of making express packaging green, the selection of packaging materials is also a key link. At present, packaging materials mostly use cartons, foam plastics and so on as cushioning materials, and these materials have the characteristics of low price and high resistance. Cartons, as outer packaging, can increase people's willingness to participate in recycling by strengthening the manufacturing process and increasing costs. Compared with products, especially high-priced products such as ceramics, glass and electronic devices, cushioning materials such as foam plastics are too cheap to use, so merchants, in order to reduce cargo damage, usually choose to double the use of cushioning materials to increase the safety of the packaging.

Lu Fude, associate professor at the School of Packaging and Materials Engineering of Hunan University of Technology, said: "Making packaging materials green is a long and arduous task. First, it is necessary to promote and implement standardization in the packaging industry, explore reasonable packaging methods for commodities of different specifications and different price ranges, and at the same time require merchants to take responsibility for their own products, improve product strength, and assist in the reduction-oriented design of express packaging; second, scientific research remains a major responsibility. We need to consider systematically from multiple disciplines such as mechanics and materials science, and find a balance between the safety and greenness of packaging materials."

Lu Fude also talked about degradable materials. He said: "Whether existing degradable materials are truly pollution-free remains open to question. These materials still cause certain harm to the environment during decomposition, and decomposition also takes a certain amount of time. Finding a material that emits no pollution at all from production to decomposition still requires the unremitting efforts of researchers."

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-379425.html