China makes headway on green express packaging

HANGZHOU -- China made remarkable progress on the green governance of express packaging in 2019, with a more environmentally-friendly development framework taking shape, according to a recent report on the green development of China's post and express industry.

Compiled by the development and research center of the State Post Bureau (SPB), the report reaffirmed the country's plan to cease the use of non-degradable plastic packaging, plastic tape, and single-use plastic woven bags at postal and express service outlets by 2025.

In 2019, 98 percent of delivery packages used electronic waybills to reduce the use of paper equivalents to 61.7 billion A4 sheets.

Over-packaging was also less last year in e-commerce, with the utilization rate of recyclable transit bags reaching 75 percent, saving 2.48 billion single-use plastic woven bags, the report read.

The report also noted that a total of 200 million packaging boxes were recovered and put back to use in 2019 across the industry, and some 78 million cartons were saved due to the use of recyclable boxes. The industry also promoted low-carbon transportation with 43,000 clean energy vehicles.

Shen Hongyan, director of the center, said science and technology are playing a more significant role in propping up the green development of the courier industry with reduced costs and increased efficiency, calling on enterprises to fulfill environmental responsibilities better.

In 2019, China's express packages posted a 25.3-percent growth to 63.52 billion, ranking as the world's first for six consecutive years. The country is expected to see over 74 billion parcels in 2020, with a growth of 18 percent year on year, said a report previously released by SPB.

The country in January released a plan to ban or significantly reduce the production and use of environmentally-unfriendly plastic products in the next five years to contain pollution.