Entering the "Green Packaging City"

With the increasing number of "Made in China" products, the packaging has also become "higher." The phenomenon of packaging, especially the excessive consumption of resources caused by excessive packaging, the destruction of the ecological environment, the increase of urban waste, and the damage to the interests of consumers are beginning to be of concern to the entire society. Thus, after the "green product", the term "green packaging" has gradually become familiar to the people.

What is the real "green packaging"? What kind of waste is caused by packaging waste? What kind of green consumer awareness do we need to establish? Not long ago, at the “China Packaging Wealth Forum” held at Shanghai International Packaging City, the current large-scale packaging industry CBD, experts from all over the country put forward their own opinions.

(1) Packing garbage “surrounds” cities

Thousands of tons of domestic garbage have become increasingly overshadowed by overcast shadows over more than 600 cities in China.

The “garbage siege” has become a real problem that Chinese cities have to face.

“Every year in Beijing, garbage can form a rubbish hill that covers an area of ​​500 mu and a height of 40 meters.” Municipal officials from Beijing City have a vivid analogy.
Beijing is just a microcosm. At present, there are still 56 million tons of municipal solid waste piled up in the suburbs each year and occupy more and more land. The "costs" of dealing with garbage are high. The cost of collecting, transporting and handling each ton of garbage is 150 to 170 yuan in Beijing, and nearly 20 billion yuan is spent on processing municipal garbage during the Ninth Five-Year Plan period.

According to experts, the fundamental reason that “the speed of garbage growth is faster than the growth rate of the national economy” lies in the fact that we can't do harmless, reduce, and recycle resources in waste disposal. Because many years of practice have shown that to deal with rubbish, it is not a fundamental way to “relocate” the rubbish. Only by reducing the amount of rubbish that can be “moved” and achieving garbage reduction, can we finally solve the rubbish problem.

In fact, in places that people can easily see, such as streets, shops, hotels, railway lines, factories, institutions, etc., the presence of garbage can be seen everywhere, and a large part of these garbage are packaged garbage.

So, what is the share of packaging waste in urban waste? According to statistics, in the United States, it accounts for about 35%, Japan about 45%, and EC countries between 30%-50%. Although this ratio in China is lower than that of Western developed countries, it is at least 15% or more.
Constrained by the limitations of recycling technology, a large amount of packaging waste, especially plastic packaging, which has not been harmlessly treated or abandoned on the spot, has become a major enemy to the city, threatening human living space and damaging human health.

(b) Overpacked "sin"

In today's commodity economy and society, a great variety of goods are produced in large quantities. In order to meet the needs of circulation, various types of packaging are used, such as storage and transportation packaging, sales packaging, and so on. Packaging has become an indispensable part of the goods. Without packaging, the functions of commodity circulation and exchange cannot be realized. Even if there is a very small number of so-called “skinny goods”, it is impossible to use packaging in the process of transportation and storage, but instead of using sales packaging, it is no exaggeration to say that without packaging, there will be no goods and there will be no us. Market economy development.

Therefore, Chen Changjie, president of the Shanghai Green Packaging Association, said: “It is not objective to blindly attribute all guilt to packaging. In fact, packaging has also played a big role in the development of a market economy in China. People will remember that in the 1970s and 1980s, 'first-class goods, second-class packaging, and third-class prices' caused heavy losses to export goods, especially when many 'commodious goods' were exported from agricultural and sideline products. After foreigners adopted exquisite sales and packaging, their worth has doubled, creating huge benefits for them."

(3) Then, in today's “garbage disaster”, why is packaging becoming a target of public criticism?

Experts believe that one of the most important reasons for the increasing number of urban garbage is over-packaging—namely, the gentrification of packaging materials. A very small thing is packaged one after another and artificially increased. The weight of packaging waste ultimately leads to a double waste of resources and money. In recent years, the over-packaging of moon cakes in China has become a typical example.

According to statistics, in recent years, some manufacturers and operators have made major fuss about packaging, and packaging has become increasingly inflamed. In the cosmetics and healthcare industry, packaging costs account for 30% to 50% of the cost. In the Shanghai market, the packaging weight of a health supplement accounted for 96.2% of the total weight.

Obviously, in today's world, when it advocates "letting trade be green," and fashionablely reducing innocuous "green packaging," overpackaging is a backward behavior. It not only increases the economic burden on consumers, but also increases the amount of garbage and pollutes the environment. It is a double waste of “money and resources”. (to be continued)