Green express from packaging management to full force

As of the end of September, more than 800 million pieces of mail express with recyclable packaging have been used - green express has made great efforts from packaging management to the whole process (beautiful China)

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By the end of September, the proportion of national e-commerce express no longer in secondary packaging exceeded 90%, and more than 800 million pieces of mail express used recyclable packaging. China's express packaging green governance work has achieved initial results, and the express industry has accelerated the pace of green and low-carbon development.

Since March this year, the business volume of China's express industry in a single month has reached 10 billion pieces, of which the year-on-year growth rate of business volume in the second and third quarters has maintained a double-digit. While the market scale is steadily expanding, the mission of green and low-carbon development of the industry is more arduous. At present, how effective is the green governance of express packaging in China? Next, how can the express industry better go green?

Preliminary achievements have been made in green management of express packaging

Near the "Double 11", Xigaze, Tibet, sent packages frequently. At Zhongtong Express outlets, each store has an extra recycling box, and many unpacked express boxes are neatly placed among them.

"At first, we would suggest customers to unpack and put them in the recycling box on the spot. Later, people gradually got used to this way of taking things." Zuo Xiaofeng, the head of Zhongtong Express's Shigatse branch, said that at present, 22 end outlets in the region have used recycling boxes, and the recovered boxes are basically intact, with high secondary utilization rate.

Identity encryption, code scanning and bag opening... In September this year, Yunda Express launched a recyclable intelligent document bag for the first time. "This file bag is not only waterproof, fireproof, and dirt proof, but also reusable for many times. It does not need to be pasted with adhesive tape, saving consumables and being more environmentally friendly." Zhou Baigen, executive vice president of Yunda Express, said that this file bag has been promoted and applied in many cities across the country.

Thousands of express packages have brought an increasing number of express packages. Recycling has become the key to green management of express packages. "From the material point of view, there are two types of waste express packaging: paper and plastic. Among them, more than 90% of the paper packaging waste, such as envelopes and packing boxes, can be recycled through social recycling, network recycling, post station recycling and other ways." Lin Hu, deputy director of the Market Supervision Department of the State Postal Administration, said.

Through the joint efforts of the whole industry, the green governance of express packaging in China has achieved initial results. By the end of September, the proportion of national e-commerce express no longer in secondary packaging exceeded 90%, more than 800 million pieces of mail express using recyclable packaging, 127000 postal express outlets with standard packaging waste recycling devices, and more than 600 million corrugated boxes with good quality were recycled.

Green packaging should be recyclable and subtractive. In May of this year, the State Post Office organized a nationwide random inspection on the data of package dispatch. The data shows that the standard rate of express mail packages exceeds 75%, especially in terms of reduction. In terms of orders, the use of electronic waybills across the industry has basically achieved full coverage; In terms of packaging, 5 layers of corrugated paper in the packaging box were reduced to 3 layers, with a reduction of 40%; The tape width is reduced from 60 mm to less than 45 mm, with a reduction of 25%. In terms of material use, heavy metals and solvent residues exceeding the standard have been effectively curbed. Lin Hu said that as of the end of September, 132 enterprises had obtained 158 green product certification certificates for express packaging.

Green development concept accelerates integration into the whole process of express industry development

To promote green and low-carbon development of express industry as a whole, green packaging governance is just one of them. "At present, the industry's ecological and environmental protection work has shifted from the green governance of express packaging to the shift period of comprehensive green development oriented by" double carbon "work to help high-quality development," said Lin Hu.

Looking at the infrastructure construction, the roof photovoltaic is constantly emerging. Since this year, major express enterprises have increased investment in renewable energy and infrastructure construction to promote green transformation of logistics parks while improving transit efficiency. Up to now, Shunfeng has built photovoltaic power stations in 12 logistics parks, including Yiwu, Zhejiang, Hefei, Anhui and Quanzhou, Fujian. In the first nine months of this year, the renewable energy power generation exceeded 15 million kilowatt hours and the emission reduction exceeded 10000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. JD has completed the construction of 23 distributed photovoltaic power stations in the "Asia No.1" Park, with a total installed capacity of 132.5 MW.

Look at the input of transportation equipment, new energy and clean energy vehicles are more popular. According to the data of Carbon Emission of China's Express Industry, in 2022, China's express industry will emit 34.91 million tons of carbon in transportation, accounting for 62.7%. To promote carbon reduction in the express industry, we need to deeply reduce emissions in the transport sector. In February this year, 8 departments including the National Post Office issued a notice stating that by 2025, the proportion of new energy vehicles among new and updated vehicles in pilot areas such as postal express delivery will strive to reach 80%. "At present, major brand delivery enterprises have widely used new energy and clean energy vehicles, and continued to promote the transformation and upgrading of transportation modes by increasing investment scale, strengthening energy use monitoring, optimizing transportation routes and other measures," said Linhu.

Look at low-carbon technology innovation, and accelerate the promotion of new smart devices. JD Logistics has regularly operated intelligent express vehicles in several cities, and Shunfeng UAV has realized real-time logistics in the same city... In recent years, major express enterprises have innovated the terminal delivery mode, accelerated the promotion and application of new intelligent facilities such as UAVs, unmanned vehicles, unmanned warehouses, and intelligent mail boxes, and reduced carbon emissions while improving transportation efficiency.

Overall promotion of green and low-carbon development of the industry still needs a long time

"Compared with the requirements of high-quality development, the green development of express delivery is still insufficient in terms of systematicness, synergy and effectiveness." Lin Hu said that, first, the upstream and downstream collaboration and the whole chain governance mechanism have not been established, second, the situation of joint management between the central and local governments has not yet formed, and third, the research on the carbon emission accounting system matching the industry development is still in its infancy.

Take the green governance of express packaging as an example. At present, the recyclable express packaging is entering the stage of large-scale application, but compared with the increasing express business volume, the use of recyclable packaging accounts for less overall. "High packaging costs and difficult end recycling are the main reasons." According to the analysis of experts in the industry, taking recyclable packaging boxes as an example, the purchase cost is 15-20 times that of cartons of the same specification, and the operation costs of recycling, cleaning, loss, allocation, etc. are superimposed. Compared with ordinary cartons, the average cost of single use is greatly increased. At the same time, some consumers have not yet established the consumption habit of using circular express packaging, and they do not understand and cooperate with recycling of recyclable packaging, which makes it difficult to form large-scale use and recycling.

Lin Hu said that the next step will be to comprehensively promote the green and low-carbon development of the express industry from three aspects: strengthening the whole process support, promoting the whole chain governance, and strengthening the multi link supervision, and gradually build a new high-quality development path led by the government, supervised by the society, and self-discipline of the industry.

key word: express packing green Lin Hu