Rising tide of parcel deliveries poses pollution threat
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Employees of Yingchuang Recycling Co sort through waste packaging at a center in Beijing. [Zou Hong / China Daily] |
China's online shopping platforms have helped to boost the economy, but the waste material from the packages they supply has an environmental downside.
Recently, Zhang Yajun received three parcels in one day; the last to arrive contained a feeding bottle for the baby she is expecting soon.
The 29-year-old expectant mother from Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei province, was surprised to see that the little glass bottle was wrapped in three layers of plastic bubble wrap, making the packaging much larger than the contents.
"It is normal practice for vendors to pack products carefully, but the waste plastic wrappers and cardboard boxes are usually useless, so I just throw them into the trash can," she said.
Given the enormous number of parcels delivered in China every year, coupled with a boom in online shopping platforms, Zhang's story will be familiar to many people.
Last year, deliveries from online vendors soared. More than 31 billion parcels were delivered, 31 times higher than in 2006, meaning that 1,000 packages were sent out or received every second of every day, according to the State Post Bureau. For example, the online shopping spree for Singles Day, which falls on Nov 11 every year, generated 1.05 billion parcels.
The upsurge saw China overtake the rest of the world, accounting for 44 percent of the global total of 70 billion parcels.
As a result, the parcel delivery sector generated revenue of 400 billion yuan ($58 billion), according to data released by State Post in January.
However, while the high volume of deliveries is beneficial to the economy, there is an environmental downside because, like Zhang, most recipients throw the packaging straight into the trash can, posing a pollution threat.
That message was under-lined recently at a collection point operated by Cainiao Network, the delivery arm of the internet giant, Alibaba. The point, which serves two universities in Beijing, saw more than 8 kilograms of unwanted packaging in just six hours, after the majority of students who received parcels discarded the wrapping immediately.
"The delivery of billions of parcels has raised energy consumption and poses a huge risk to the environment," said Zhu Lei, deputy director of a research center in Qingdao, Shandong province, which works for the Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication.
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