Accumulated waste from China’s e-commerce and express delivery sectors stands to more than quadruple by 2025 unless action is taken to rein it in, Greenpeace and other non-government bodies said in a report.
As e-commerce giants work to extend their reach into rural regions, 1.88 billion packages were delivered from Nov 11 to Nov 16 last year (2018), an annual increase of almost 26%, the State Post Bureau said.
Greenpeace estimates the generated waste to have exceeded 250,000 tonnes.
China has moved to turn recycling into a profitable business as space for landfills becomes scarcer and environmental concern grows over plastic waste. The country has yet to tackle e-commerce waste and only recycling around 5% of plastic packaging, the green groups said in their report. Last month (October 2019), China’s market regulator published new draft packaging standards, and this will restrict courier firms to an approved list of recyclable materials.
Alibaba said it had incentives for customers to recycle, and adds that its delivery subsidiary Cainiao would observe Nov 20 as a special cardboard recycling day.
Another online retailer, JD.com, also announced it had cut back on adhesive tape and paper used at its warehouses, in addition to adopt more recyclable materials.
China is building 100 “comprehensive resource utilisation bases”, creating pilot “zero-waste” cities and pushing for mandatory trash sorting rules in major hubs such as Shanghai.
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Source: The Straits Times, 12 November 2019