Slimming Down" Packaging to Boost Green Consumption

This year's "618" promotional event was linked with the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, and demand for online shopping, holiday consumption and giving gifts to relatives and friends grew in a concentrated way. It is worth noting that, along with the endless stream of express deliveries, the number of packaging wastes at residential garbage storage sites has surged. Shopping is becoming more and more convenient, but the pollution and waste caused by excessive packaging of goods are common. To respond to green consumption, attention must be paid to the problem of excessive packaging of goods; moderation and reasonableness must be upheld, and extravagance and flashiness must be opposed.

In the past, our country's goods generally paid little attention to packaging, because of the belief that good wine needs no bush, and many losses were suffered in product sales, especially in exports. With decades of reform and opening up, China's economy has made considerable progress, and the domestic packaging industry has also achieved a qualitative leap. The "2022 Report on the Operation of China's Packaging Industry" shows that in 2022, there were 9,860 packaging enterprises above designated size in China, and packaging enterprises above designated size nationwide completed a cumulative operating revenue of 12,293.34 billion yuan. Chinese goods have not only advanced to world-class levels in quality, but have also caught up with advanced world levels in commodity packaging.

While seeing the vigorous development of the packaging industry, we must also see that the phenomenon of excessive packaging is still relatively serious in the circulation and sale of goods. In order to raise selling prices and create a high-end image for their own goods, some merchants invest too much in packaging, valuing appearance over content, and are keen on repeated packaging and excessive packaging - extravagant and flashy, with name not matching reality - which further increases environmental pollution and resource waste. For example, Xiamen recently carried out a special governance campaign against excessive packaging of tea, exposing several typical cases, including 10 grams of tea packaged in a volume of 5,000 cubic centimeters, and two small packets of cinnamon tea priced at more than 2,000 yuan with a packaging void ratio exceeding the standard by 95%.

5,000 cubic centimeters is equivalent to the volume of 10 bottles of 500 ml bottled water. Using such a large space for only 10 grams of tea both uses a large amount of extra packaging and filling materials and occupies excessive space in logistics and transportation, causing a waste of logistics space and energy. At the same time, the outer packaging that consumers finally discard also increases the burden of sanitation collection and garbage disposal, causing astonishing resource waste during the product life cycle.

The Party and the state attach great importance to the problem of excessive packaging. The Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035 proposes accelerating the green transformation of development modes, building a resource recycling system, and advancing the reduction, standardization and recycling of express packaging. In the "Report on the Implementation of the 2022 National Economic and Social Development Plan and the Draft 2023 National Economic and Social Development Plan", the National Development and Reform Commission proposed vigorously advocating green consumption and governing excessive packaging of goods. Consumers likewise oppose excessive packaging. According to the "Research on the Issue of Excessive Commodity Packaging and Consumer Perception Survey Report" recently released by the China Consumers Association, 80.7% of consumers oppose excessive packaging; 51.4% of consumers believe there are many problems with excessive packaging of goods.

In today's highly developed commercial circulation, commodity packaging is already a highly specialized large-scale industry. On the premise of meeting scientific, safety and necessary requirements, reducing excessive and redundant packaging is not only a matter for the packaging industry, but also a value orientation that merchants and consumers alike need to adjust. When merchants no longer rely on excessive packaging to "gild" their products, and consumers no longer favor flashy product appearances, the "slimming down" of excessive packaging will come naturally. At the same time, regulatory supervision and checks on excessive packaging in the market are likewise indispensable. Only when all parties work together can packaging shed its flashiness and return to its true nature.

As a country with a large population, China has a huge demand for resources. At a time when green development is increasingly taking root in people's hearts, rationally using limited resources, improving efficiency of use, and reducing pollution and waste are conducive to both sustainable development and energy and resource conservation. Let us work together to abandon excessive packaging and boost green development.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-379410.html