Latest Hot Topic in the Packaging Industry: Saving Resources and Curbing Over-Packaging

Some people say that good

is half the battle. Under market economy conditions, goods have to rely on

. Take a stroll around a shopping mall or supermarket: the shelves are crowded with goods of every description, each outer package more eye-catching than the last. Many outer boxes are lined with imitation gold foil, red silk or yellow satin, and the rigid boxes are gilded and painted in bright colours, dazzling the eye. Tea

A salesperson at the specialty counter explained that there are as many as a hundred types of tea caddy alone, and the more exquisite ones are, of course, the more expensive. With the Dragon Boat Festival approaching, many zongzi brands are rushing onto the market. If you stand in front of these dazzling arrays of zongzi, judging by the packaging, zongzi too are following mooncakes down a

road. This phenomenon gives one pause for thought.

There is no doubt that the

of goods brings a waste of resources and aggravates environmental pollution. One set of figures shows that the whole country produces

hundred million boxes of mooncakes every year, whose packaging consumes large quantities of wood material, and a single Mid-Autumn Festival is enough to

away a whole stretch of forest. Some experts have also calculated that China produces about

hundred million shirts a year, of which

packaged, and the amount of paper used is equivalent to felling

centimetre-tall trees; that is to say, shirts alone mean that consumers in a single year

away a whole stretch of forest.

Other statistics show that one third of municipal household waste is packaging waste, and more than half of that packaging waste is excessive packaging. In Beijing, the various kinds of packaging waste each year amount to about

ten thousand tons of excessive packaging, and reducing excessive packaging could greatly cut environmental pollution. At present, packaging waste accounts for half the volume of solid waste in our country, and the value discarded each year reaches as much as

hundred million yuan. China's annual packaging output reaches

while the overall recovery rate is less than that of output

Surveys show that more than 90 percent of consumers are unwilling to pay for excessive packaging. Excessive packaging of goods does harm and no good whatever to the state, society and individuals alike; efforts to tackle it must be intensified and the trend of excessive packaging firmly curbed.

Early in the year, the Notice of the General Office of the State Council on Curbing Excessive Packaging of Commodities stressed that excessive packaging not only wastes resources and pollutes the environment but also drives commodity prices artificially high, harms consumers' interests, disrupts market order and encourages extravagance and corruption; standards, regulations and policies must be drawn up and improved without delay to prohibit the production and sale of excessively packaged goods; publicity must be stepped up

to mobilize the whole of society against excessive packaging; at the same time, supervision and inspection must be strengthened.

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, the national mandatory standard Requirements for Limiting Excessive Packaging of Commodities

and Cosmetics officially came into force. The standard lays down mandatory provisions on the void ratio, the number of packaging layers and the packaging cost of

indicators for the sales packaging of food and cosmetics, namely that the number of packaging layers must not exceed

layers, the packaging void ratio must not exceed

, and the total cost of all packaging other than the initial packaging must not exceed that of the commodity's selling price

. More than a year after the standard took effect, the results are not encouraging. Some experts say the reason is that the Requirements are merely a set of textual restrictions on enterprises, with no penalty provisions once a violation occurs, which makes them rather difficult to enforce.

Not long ago, in its Report on Implementing the Law Enforcement Inspection Report and Deliberations of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on the

Production Promotion Law, the National Development and Reform Commission proposed that the relevant regulations would be improved and issued without delay.

Some experts say that tackling excessive packaging should draw on the experience of other countries and uphold the principle of combining source control with end-of-pipe treatment: source control means reducing and limiting excessive packaging through standards and legislation, while end-of-pipe treatment means recycling and turning it into resources. For example, Japan stipulates that packaging costs should not exceed

of the selling price, and South Korea classifies excessive packaging as an illegal act, with a maximum fine of up to

In curbing excessive packaging, both consumers and manufacturers bear an inescapable responsibility. Society as a whole should be guided to embrace rational, green consumption concepts, to practise thrift and frugality and to criticize extravagance. Enterprises should strengthen the notion of plain packaging, oppose excessive packaging and advocate moderate packaging, so as to save costs and conserve resources.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-369973.html