From Source to Last Mile: How Green Materials and Circular Models Cut Express Packaging Waste

During the mid-year e-commerce promotion season, major platforms have launched campaigns, and since June nearly 400 million express parcels have been moving across China every day. Interviews show that oversized boxes inside smaller ones, cartons filled with plastic foam, and goods hidden under multiple layers of wrapping remain common. Excessive express packaging is still a visible issue.

Reporter estimates show the discarded packaging volume is about five times the volume of the purchased goods. Much of it cannot be reused, so it ends up at recycling stations and becomes a major part of household waste.

CCTV reporter Chen Qingbin, at a community recycling station, said the largest recyclable stream there is cardboard boxes. These boxes have been sorted and stacked, alongside foam boxes and plastic items. A recycling worker collects all recyclables at the station every day.

Staff said Tianjin currently has about 200 such stations, each processing roughly 5 tonnes of recyclables per day. Express packaging waste accounts for about 80% of that total.

Innovating Green Packaging to Break Through Technical and Cost Barriers

China's express delivery sector now handles 350 million items per day and serves nearly 700 million users daily, ranking first worldwide for many consecutive years. Tackling excessive express packaging is urgent and also essential for industry upgrading and sustainable development. The key to slimming down express packaging still lies at the source: packaging design. How is recyclable green packaging developing? Where are the R&D and promotion challenges? With these questions, the reporter visited the China Post Green Packaging Innovation Laboratory.

CCTV reporter Tang Ying observed at the lab's R&D site that a packaging prototyping machine was producing samples based on designers' drawings.

Gao Kang, packaging engineer at the China Post Green Packaging Laboratory, said that after a carton is glued, it undergoes drop, vibration, and impact tests to verify protection of contents in real scenarios. If it fails, the team first adjusts the paper, such as increasing grammage, then rebalances material selection, redraws the design, and repeats testing until requirements are met.

Beyond cartons, frequently used express materials such as bubble wrap and tape also go through multiple testing rounds. R&D staff said tape used for wrapping is a key and difficult area.

Kang Li, technical supervisor at the China Post Green Packaging Laboratory, said that compared with conventional tape, degradable tape may reach only about 50% of the strength level for packing, and its cost is slightly higher, rising by nearly twofold.

To improve strength, Kang Li and colleagues ran numerous tensile tests and monitored curves in real time. After nearly two years of effort, the team launched a new fully biodegradable eco-friendly tape this year. During waste recycling, the tape does not need to be separated from cartons, and under suitable conditions it can degrade directly into water and carbon dioxide.

Kang Li said costs have fallen further, by up to 10%, marking a major technical breakthrough. In promoting circular packaging, companies do face higher costs and changes in frontline operations. She believes technical innovation, new materials and products, and process improvements can help press costs down as much as possible.

However, at the green packaging innovation lab, the reporter found that many circular packaging boxes developed earlier are still rarely seen or used in daily life.

Kang Li said their use scenarios are currently relatively fixed. They require face-to-face receipt so the box can be collected. If placed in a self-service locker, couriers find it hard to retrieve them, and express companies face a higher loss rate. Therefore, intelligent management systems need to be built step by step.

Kang Li told the reporter that Chinese postal enterprises now use circular mail bags at a rate of 96%. Yet compared with postal operations at the tens-of-billions level and the entire industry at the hundreds-of-billions level, circular packaging at the express logistics last mile still has major room to grow in usage volume and cycle counts.

Express Companies Explore Full-Process Greening

Express packaging must protect goods while avoiding waste. In the reporter's research, more express logistics companies are paying attention to this balance and are advancing full-process greening through various approaches to help express packaging slim down and shed load.

At an express outlet in Yiwu, Zhejiang, a dedicated green shipping area has been set up. Consumers can accumulate the number of express outer packages they bring in and exchange them for delivery fees between different cities. In transport, express companies have replaced older 9.6-meter box trucks with 15-to-17-meter high-capacity swap-body trailers, cutting pollutant emissions per parcel by more than 70%. Following a transport vehicle, the reporter saw green smart eco-friendly bags at the sorting center.

Zhu Zhongchen, deputy manager of the HR comprehensive management group at Zhongtong Express Zhejiang Yiwu Center, said the bag can now be cycled more than 110 times and is equipped with a chip so it can be automatically sorted within the system. With the popularization and promotion of Yiliandan, downstream transit links can reduce paper-related pollutant emissions by more than 60%. He said nearly all items now achieve circular use and form a closed loop, truly reflecting core green environmental value.

At a postal processing center in Guizhou, the reporter saw that many e-commerce products are beginning to use a green circular Qingliu box. Compared with traditional cartons, this box does not need tape sealing, has a built-in lock, and only requires an adhesive address label.

Yang Biyong, manager of the mail processing center at Guiyang Postal District Center in Guizhou Province, said that for provincial agricultural support and rural revitalization projects such as honey plums, kiwifruit, and yellow peaches, China Post customizes green eco-friendly cartons to ensure materials entering the site meet environmental standards.

Ratio of E-commerce Parcels Without Secondary Packaging Expected to Reach 90% by Year-End

Excessive express packaging has long drawn public attention. As early as 2009, China carried out special governance for express packaging. In April 2021, the State Post Bureau issued the Special Governance Plan for Excessive and Arbitrary Packaging of Mail and Express Items. Through joint efforts, green development awareness in the express sector has gradually strengthened. Relevant officials said that by the end of this year, the goal is for the proportion of e-commerce express items without secondary packaging to reach 90%.

Latest data from the State Post Bureau show that, based on random parcel checks in May, mail and express items using recyclable packaging reached 380 million, and corrugated cartons recovered and reused in good condition reached 350 million. In March this year, the State Post Bureau issued the Implementation Opinions on Promoting Green and Low-Carbon Development of the Postal and Express Industry, calling for faster construction of a mail and express packaging circular utilization system and advancing pilot construction for 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, noted that green governance of express packaging involves many stakeholders, a long chain, and broad fields. It requires coordinated efforts across departments to form a shared governance framework; more tax and fee incentives and subsidies from the state to increase green express packaging supply; and stronger support from local governments to resolve bottlenecks such as high circular packaging costs, difficult recovery, and limited support.

Guan Aiguang said advancing green packaging is a systematic project. With the large-scale promotion of electronic waybills, slimmer tape, and lightweight boxes, China has basically entered the 2.0 era of packaging reduction. This stage requires a shift toward material and technology innovation, such as new material development, new packaging containers, and intelligent packing systems, while coordinating reduction goals across the upstream and downstream supply chain.

On the other hand, the circular packaging market at the logistics last mile needs a technical breakthrough. Promoting circular packaging is an important part of the green postal strategy and a key means of exploring green transformation in packaging.

Guan Aiguang said that by year-end, the proportion of e-commerce express items without secondary packaging should reach 90%; the two governance efforts on excessive packaging and plastic pollution should be deepened; mail and express items using recyclable express packaging should reach 1 billion; and corrugated cartons recovered and reused in good condition should reach 800 million.

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