Shanghai Draft Law on Excessive Packaging to Be Submitted for Deliberation in July

[ppzhan abstract]

] In addressing both the production and the circulation stages, over-packaged goods may find themselves powerless to harm consumers even if they wish to. Shanghai's legislation to restrict excessive packaging fills us with anticipation and gives us hope! The Several Provisions of Shanghai Municipality on Promoting the Reduction of Commodity Packaging (Draft for Public Comment), which covers 12 aspects including legislative purpose, scope of application, basic principles, division of responsibilities and packaging requirements, is scheduled to be submitted to the Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress for deliberation in July.

The Several Provisions of Shanghai Municipality on Promoting the Reduction of Commodity Packaging (Draft for Public Comment), which covers 12 aspects including legislative purpose, scope of application, basic principles, division of responsibilities and packaging requirements, is scheduled to be submitted to the Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress for deliberation in July. Drawing on repeated investigations and opinions solicited from various quarters, the draft tempers firmness with flexibility, in the hope of restricting excessive packaging at every stage — production, sales, consumption and supervision.

In daily life we have all surely encountered this: you buy a product, and the outer packaging goes on layer after layer; once you strip off all those layers, the actual item turns out to be pitifully small or of little value. By the time we realize we have been taken in, the goods are already in our hands, so we simply chalk it up to bad luck and vow never to buy such a product again. This outer packaging is exactly what we mean by excessive packaging. In the words of experts, excessive packaging refers to packaging that uses too much material, is too heavy, too bulky or too costly, with overly ornate decoration and excessively glowing wording.

Excessive packaging is highly harmful, and the four charges we know well are: wasting resources; polluting the environment; increasing product costs and harming consumers' interests; and encouraging waste, breeding corruption and poisoning the social climate. The existence of excessive packaging runs counter to the Chinese nation's traditional virtues of simplicity and thrift, and goes against the requirements of building a resource-conserving, environment-friendly society and advancing socialist spiritual civilization. Precisely for this reason, Shanghai's legislation to restrict excessive packaging is worth looking forward to.

In fact, the state has already legislated to restrict excessive packaging. On March 28, 2010, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the Standardization Administration of China issued the national standard Requirements for Restricting Excessive Packaging of Commodities — Foods and Cosmetics, which took effect on April 1 of that year. However, that standard applies only to food and cosmetics. Shanghai's legislation to restrict excessive packaging not only covers a broader range of commodities, but also imposes restrictions at every stage — production, sales, consumption and supervision — so that it can address both the symptoms and the root causes.

For example, the draft is intended to specify that when a seller signs a purchase contract with a manufacturer, the packaging requirements must be clearly stated, and that when accepting the goods the seller may require the manufacturer to provide a test report on commodity packaging; if the manufacturer refuses to provide one, the seller may refuse the goods, thereby using the contract to keep over-packaged goods out of the market. In this way, over-packaged goods are blocked from entering the market at the source.

With both the production stage and the circulation stage under control, over-packaged goods may find themselves powerless to harm consumers even if they wish to.

For commodities for which the state has not yet established standards to restrict excessive packaging, the draft is intended to adopt a combination of binding and incentive measures, rewarding companies for reducing packaging while emphasizing industry self-discipline and public oversight. For instance, the draft will set out a number of guiding provisions encouraging producers and sellers to indicate on the outer packaging information such as the recycling of packaging materials and packaging costs; industry associations will formulate self-regulatory standards and, under the guidance of the relevant government departments, organize certification for simple commodity packaging. Once consumers find that commodity packaging violates mandatory provisions, they may report it to the quality supervision department.

Of course, a draft is always a draft. For one thing, whether it can be adopted is the primary question; for another, even if it is adopted, how to strengthen enforcement is an even more familiar topic. Even so, "having laws to go by" is certainly better than "having no laws to go by," and "lax enforcement" is always better than "no enforcement." Since Shanghai intends to legislate to restrict excessive packaging, it will presumably not let the draft become a mere scrap of paper and slap itself in the face. It is in this sense that Shanghai's legislation to restrict excessive packaging fills us with anticipation and gives us hope!

— This article is reposted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362064.html