Shanghai Packaging Reduction Draft Takes Shape, Public Procurement to Favor Reasonable Packaging

Shanghai’s push to cut packaging waste has moved into a new phase, with a first draft of local legislation now largely in place and further consultation still to come.

“Our research showed this is both a worthy cause and a difficult one,” Gan Zhongze said. At the national level, technical standards that curb excessive packaging currently cover only selected product categories, including mooncakes and cosmetics, and there is no dedicated law. For Shanghai to introduce a local regulation, several questions remain open: Where should packaging reduction begin? How should excessive packaging be judged? Which practices should be regulated first?

Tea in expensive wooden boxes, zongzi in elaborate gift baskets, liquor in assorted bottle-and-jar gift sets—recent years have seen excessive packaging spread across more and more consumer goods.

“One figure stands out: 30% of urban household waste today comes from packaging,” Gan Zhongze, chairman of the Urban Construction and Environmental Protection Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress, told reporters. Reducing excessive packaging, he said, means cutting waste at the source. Shanghai has already launched legislation to promote packaging material reduction and has formed a first draft, he added.

Progress: First draft of packaging reduction legislation takes shape

“Since last year, the Municipal People’s Congress has been studying Shanghai’s waste sorting work,” Gan Zhongze said. During that research, many deputies found that step-by-step waste sorting had not reduced the generation of household waste or its heavy environmental burden at the source. In urban household waste, about one-third is packaging waste from goods, accounting for half of all solid waste. Against that backdrop, Gan said, reducing commodity packaging is one of the key pathways to source reduction as the city pushes waste reduction.

Data also show that more than 50% of goods in China are affected by excessive packaging, with annual discards valued at up to RMB 400 billion. “Excessive packaging wastes resources, increases the burden on waste treatment and environmental protection, harms consumers and has a negative impact on social conduct,” Gan said. Advanced overseas experience indicates that successful waste reduction is closely tied to limits on excessive packaging. “Shanghai has scarce land resources and enormous waste disposal pressure, so tackling excessive packaging and promoting packaging reduction is highly meaningful.”

Gan said the city began legislative research on packaging material reduction at the end of last year. The research team conducted multiple in-depth studies, held broad symposia with companies, government departments, experts, scholars and consumers, and also gathered opinions and research input online.

“In our research we found that this is a good thing, but also a hard thing,” Gan acknowledged. Given that the state has only set technical standards to limit excessive packaging for certain goods such as mooncakes and cosmetics, and no dedicated law exists, Shanghai’s local regulation must address many issues. “For example, where is the entry point for packaging reduction? What is the criterion for excessive packaging? Which behaviors should be prioritized for regulation?”

After repeated research, the team concluded that, apart from national standards for certain product packaging such as mooncakes and cosmetics, excessive packaging lacks a unified test and is understood differently across society, making it hard to achieve a breakthrough by restricting excessive packaging alone. “However, if we approach it from promoting the reduction of commodity packaging, there is still room for legislation,” the team found.

The research also found that packaging reduction involves not only producers and consumers, but sellers as well. “Most goods in Shanghai come from other regions, making it difficult to regulate producer behavior. Therefore, the role of the sales channel in reducing commodity packaging should be fully leveraged.”

Gan also noted that the legislative research distinguished goods that already have national standards from those that do not. “For products with existing standards, we hope to implement them through local legislation; for those without standards, we can advance incentive-based and advocacy-oriented local measures.”

So far, a first draft of the “Several Provisions of Shanghai on the Reduction of Commodity Packaging” (tentative name) has basically taken shape, and further opinions and suggestions will be solicited from all sides.

— This article is reposted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362063.html