General Rules on Restricting Excessive Packaging of Commodities Pass Review

The "Three Sins" of Excessive Packaging

The "first sin" is causing massive waste of resources, endangering an increasingly severe living environment and strained resources, and running counter to the thrust of China's advocacy of building a conservation-oriented society.

The "second sin" is that the current recovery rate of packaging waste in China is very low, making it a major source of municipal solid waste.

The "third sin" is that excessive packaging also encourages the gift-giving culture among consumers, breeding corruption and tainting the social atmosphere.

Excessive packaging of commodities leaves consumers complaining endlessly and also wastes large amounts of resources and energy. However, because of the absence of packaging standards, the phenomenon of excessive packaging persists despite repeated prohibitions. Recently, the mandatory national standard General Rules for Restricting Excessive Packaging of Commodities passed the review of the examination committee. The standard sets out the basic requirements, limit requirements and calculation methods for restricting excessive packaging of commodities. Among them, the limit requirements for the packaging of certain commodities are mandatory clauses.

It is understood that the commodities for which the General Rules set limit requirements mainly comprise six categories: alcoholic beverages, pastries (excluding mooncakes), cosmetics, health foods, tea and grain. The limit requirements are reflected in two aspects of the packaging of these commodities: the void ratio and the number of packaging layers. The packaging void ratio is the ratio of the volume of unnecessary space inside the sales packaging of a commodity to the volume of the sales packaging. The standard stipulates that the packaging void ratio of alcoholic beverages and pastries must not exceed 55%, that of cosmetics and health foods must not exceed 50%, that of tea must not exceed 25%, and that of grain must not exceed 10%.

The number of packaging layers is the number of layers of packaging that completely wrap the product, not including the primary packaging that is in direct contact with the product. The standard stipulates that the number of packaging layers for alcoholic beverages, pastries, cosmetics, health foods and tea is 3 or fewer.

The standard specifically stipulates that for the six categories of commodities — alcoholic beverages, pastries, cosmetics, health foods, tea and grain — the total cost of all packaging other than the primary packaging should not exceed 15% of the ex-factory price of the commodity

The standard requires that commodity packaging achieve appropriate materials, reduced material use and a simplified structure and, on that basis, strictly control packaging costs.

Appropriate materials: select appropriate packaging materials according to the characteristics and quality of the commodity; commodity packaging should preferably use a single material or packaging materials whose materials are easy to separate; packaging materials should preferably use relatively abundant, recyclable materials.

Reduced material use: on the premise of satisfying the basic functions of commodity packaging, rationally design and timely evaluate the use of packaging materials in order to reduce the amount of packaging materials used.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362204.html