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As major e-commerce platforms kicked off their mid-year promotional campaigns, roughly nearly 400 million express parcels have been moving across the country every day since June. However, during interviews, reporters found that excessive express packaging is still far from rare: big boxes inside smaller boxes, packaging boxes stuffed full of plastic foam, and layers upon layers of wrapping that must be torn open before the product can be seen...

Reporters estimated that the volume of this discarded packaging is about five times that of the products purchased. Because much of it cannot be reused, it can only be sent to garbage collection stations, becoming the "main force" of household waste.

CCTV reporter Chen Qingbin: At the collection station in this community, we can see that the item with the largest recycling volume at the site is this kind of cardboard box. These boxes have already been sorted and arranged, and there are also some foam boxes and plastic items like these. Everything recycled at this site is collected by recycling workers every day.

Staff told reporters that there are currently about 200 such stations in Tianjin, each handling about 5 tonnes of recyclables per day, of which express packaging waste accounts for around 80%.

Innovating green packaging to break through technical and cost barriers

At present, China's express delivery industry handles 350 million items per day on average and serves nearly 700 million users per day, ranking first in the world for many consecutive years. Properly resolving the problem of excessive express packaging is not only urgent, but also an inherent requirement for the industry's transformation, upgrading and sustainable development. To "slim down" express packaging, the most critical thing is to start from the source and work hard on packaging design. So what is the state of research and development of recyclable, green and environmentally friendly packaging? And where are the difficulties in R&D and promotion? With these questions in mind, reporters visited the China Post Green Packaging Innovation Laboratory.

CCTV reporter Tang Ying: At the R&D site of the China Post Green Packaging Innovation Laboratory, this packaging prototyping machine is making samples according to the design drawings of the R&D staff.

Gao Kang, packaging engineer at the China Post Green Packaging Laboratory: After our boxes are glued, they undergo some physical tests such as drop, vibration and impact tests, to verify the safety of the contents in real scenarios. If they do not meet the standard, we will consider first making some adjustments to the paper used, increasing the paper's grammage, then re-selecting and blending the paper, then redrawing the drawings, and repeating these steps and testing again, until it meets our requirements.

Besides cardboard boxes, various items frequently used in express delivery, such as bubble wrap and tape, also undergo multiple rounds of testing. R&D staff said that the tape often wrapped around packages is a key and difficult point in R&D.

Kang Li, technical director of the China Post Green Packaging Laboratory: Compared with traditional ordinary tape, (degradable tape) may not be as strong when packing, reaching only about 50% of that of our traditional tape, and its cost is also slightly higher, increasing by nearly two times.

To solve this strength problem, Kang Li and her colleagues conducted countless tensile tests, observing the curves in real time. After nearly two years of continuous effort, they finally launched a new type of fully biodegradable eco-friendly tape this year. During waste recycling, the tape and the cardboard box do not need to be separated, and under suitable conditions this tape can also degrade directly into water and carbon dioxide.

Kang Li, technical director of the China Post Green Packaging Laboratory: The cost has been further reduced, by up to 10%, so this is a major technological breakthrough for us. In the process of promoting circular packaging, enterprises do indeed face increased costs and changes in grassroots operating methods. We believe that we need to push the cost down as much as possible through technological innovation, the application of new materials and new products, and process improvements.

At the Green Packaging Innovation Laboratory, however, reporters found that many recyclable packaging boxes developed long ago are rarely seen or used in daily life.

Kang Li, technical director of the China Post Green Packaging Laboratory: Its usage scenarios are currently relatively fixed. It requires face-to-face signing for receipt so that the box can be collected back. If it is placed in a self-pickup locker, it is very difficult for the courier to collect it back, and as an express delivery company, its loss rate is also relatively high, so we need to gradually build an intelligent management system.

Kang Li told reporters that at present the usage rate of circular mail bags among China's postal enterprises has reached 96%, but compared with the postal service's tens-of-billions-level and the entire industry's hundreds-of-billions-level business volumes, circular packaging at the end of express logistics still has a lot of room for improvement in terms of usage volume and number of cycles.

Express delivery companies explore advancing "greening" across the whole process

Express packaging must both ensure the safety of goods and avoid waste. How can a balance be found between the two? In their research, reporters found that more and more express logistics companies are paying attention to and thinking about this issue, advancing "greening" across the whole process in various ways to help express packaging "slim down and reduce its burden".

At an express delivery outlet in Yiwu, Zhejiang, reporters saw that a green delivery area has been set aside specifically. Consumers can accumulate the number of express outer packages they bring in and redeem them for delivery fees between different cities. In the transportation stage, express companies have replaced their previous 9.6-meter box trucks with 15-17-meter high-capacity drop-and-hook trailers, which can immediately reduce pollutant emissions per express item by more than 70%. Following a transport truck, reporters saw green smart eco-friendly bags at the sorting center.

Zhu Zhongchen, deputy manager of the HR Comprehensive Management Group of the ZTO Express Zhejiang Yiwu Center: This bag has now been cycled more than 110 times, and a chip has also been installed so that it can be automatically sorted within this system. Through the popularization and use of electronic waybills, in the subsequent transfer stage we can reduce pollutant emissions from paper by more than 60%. Basically, everything we use now has achieved recycling, forming a closed loop, truly embodying the core value of green and environmental protection.

At a postal processing center in Guizhou, reporters saw that many e-commerce products are beginning to use a green circular box. Compared with traditional cardboard boxes, this box no longer needs tape to seal it - the box body has its own locking catch - and only a self-adhesive address label is attached.

Yang Biyong, manager of the Mail Processing Center of the Guiyang Postal District Center in Guizhou Province: For some of the province's agricultural benefit projects, such as honey plums, kiwifruit, and yellow peaches - these rural revitalization projects - we at China Post customize green and eco-friendly cardboard boxes to ensure that all materials entering our facilities meet environmental protection standards.

Proportion of items no longer repackaged expected to reach 90% by the end of this year

Tackling excessive express packaging has long been an issue of widespread concern across society. As early as 2009, China carried out a special campaign on express packaging. In April 2021, the State Post Bureau issued the "Special Action Plan for Excessive and Arbitrary Packaging of Mail and Express Items". Through the efforts of many parties, awareness of green development in the express delivery industry has gradually strengthened. A relevant official said that by the end of this year, the goal is to achieve a 90% proportion of e-commerce express items that are no longer repackaged.

The latest data from the State Post Bureau show that, based on sampling inspections of parcels in May, 380 million mail and express items used recyclable packaging, and 350 million corrugated cartons in good condition were recovered and reused. In March this year, the State Post Bureau issued the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Green and Low-Carbon Development of the Postal and Express Delivery Industry", which clearly calls for accelerating the construction of a recycling system for mail and express packaging and for advancing the construction of pilot projects for the large-scale application of recyclable express packaging supported by the National Development and Reform Commission.

Guan Aiguang, deputy director of the Market Regulation Department of the State Post Bureau: The green governance of express packaging involves many entities, a long chain and wide fields. In the process of advancing it, all departments need to work together to accelerate the formation of a coordinated management framework; the state needs to introduce more tax and fee preferential and subsidy policies to increase the supply of green express packaging; and local government departments at all levels need to increase their support to resolve difficult and blocking issues such as the high cost, difficult recovery and limited support of recyclable packaging.

Guan Aiguang said that advancing green packaging is a systematic project. At present, with the large-scale promotion and application of green packaging such as electronic waybills, slimmed-down tape and lightweight boxes, China has basically entered the 2.0 era of packaging reduction. This period requires a shift toward material and technological innovation, such as the development of new materials, new types of packaging containers and intelligent packing systems, so as to coordinate the goal of reduction from both the upstream and downstream of the supply chain.

On the other hand, the circular packaging market at the end of logistics needs to achieve a technological breakthrough. Promoting and applying circular packaging is an important part of the green postal strategy and an important means of exploring the green transformation of packaging.

Guan Aiguang, deputy director of the Market Regulation Department of the State Post Bureau: By the end of the year, we will achieve a 90% proportion of e-commerce express items that are no longer repackaged, further advance the two governance efforts on excessive packaging and plastic pollution, bring the number of mail and express items using recyclable express packaging to 1 billion, and recover and reuse 800 million corrugated cartons in good condition.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-379423.html