Looking at the Circular Economy from the Overpacking of Goods (I)

Abstract: Today, over-packaging of goods is flooding the market. It not only misleads consumers and harms the interests of consumers. What's more, it wastes resources and energy and pollutes the environment. This phenomenon is contrary to China's development of circular economy and the construction of a conservation-oriented society. This article believes that the state should adopt legislation to strictly define and restrict excessive packaging of goods. Consumers should change their consumption concepts so that there is no room for excessive packaging. Manufacturers should change their business concepts and adapt to the general trend of global green packaging development.

Keywords: over-packaged goods, circular economy, packaging is the overall name of containers, materials, and auxiliary materials used to protect products, facilitate transportation, and promote sales according to certain technical methods. From the definition of packaging, we can see that the basic functions of packaging are embodied in the three functions of protecting products, facilitating transportation, and promoting sales. Before being consumed, the packaging plays a role in protecting the environment, prolonging the shelf life of consumer products, reducing the waste of resources and the environmental pollution of consumer goods. Therefore, the impact of packaging on the environment is benign and conducive to the optimization of the environment. Development; and post-consumer packaging have adverse effects on the environment. With the development of the economy, the intensification of international economic competition, and the change in consumer attitudes, over-packaging of goods is flooding the Chinese market. Excessive packaging of goods not only wastes resources and energy, mislead consumers, but more importantly, its packaging waste poses a serious threat to the environment. This phenomenon contradicts the overall goal of developing a recycling economy and building a conservation-oriented society.

Over-packaging of goods Over-packaging refers to packaging that far exceeds the function of the packaging of the goods. The used packaging exceeds the scope of protection of the packaging, reflecting the over-large and excessive packaging. The prominent feature is excessive packaging. The forms of overpacking are various and can be analyzed from the aspects of packaging quantity, degree, shape, and so on. The "quantity" of excessive packaging means that the quality and quantity of the packaging exceeds the scope of protection of the packaged goods; in terms of quantity, the number of packaging layers and the number of packagings are excessively excessive, which increases the number of unnecessary packaging, the thickness of the packaging, and The number of packaging; in terms of quality, the performance of the package is too much, the amount of units used in the packaging is excessive, and the ratio of packaging to packaging is out of balance. The “degree” overpacking is mainly reflected in the overpacking of the thickness, length and width of the packaging. By increasing the thickness of the packaging material and adding filling materials to the packaging's structural space, the amount of packaging material is increased, and even the designer pursues it. Visual effects have led to over-width packaging. The over-packing of “shape” specifically manifests itself in creating a larger space on the shape of the packaging and the packaging, usually the packaging is much larger than the shape of the product. In addition, there is an over-packing of color, that is, a package that can be used in black and white colors, but uses a color package that can be packaged in a single color but uses a two-color package or a multi-color package.

Over-packaging hazards of goods Over-packaging causes harm to society in many ways. The main performance is in the following aspects:

Serious pollution of the environment

The pollution of the packaging to the environment is reflected in three aspects, namely the pollution of the packaging production process, the pollution caused by the packaging materials or packaging containers, and the pollution caused by the packaging waste. Specifically, some of the raw materials in the packaging industry are processed into packaging products, and some of the raw materials become pollutants discharged into the environment. For example, various waste gases, waste water, and waste residues discharged from packaging companies cannot be recycled during the production process. Environmental pollution caused by packaging materials. Some packaging materials cause changes in their own chemical properties that result in contamination of the contents or the environment. The packaging is mostly disposable. Therefore, about 80% of the packaging products become packaging waste. Therefore, the environmental pollution caused by packaging waste is obvious. Packaging also makes this pollution more serious. Excessive packaging from the collection, manufacturing, and waste into the environment is a complete destruction. According to the statistics of the environmental sanitation department, among the nearly 3 million tons of garbage, about 830,000 tons are packaged for various commodities, of which 600,000 tons are over-packaging items that can be reduced. It can be seen that excessive packaging has become a source of environmental pollution that cannot be ignored.

Waste of resources and energy

At present, the packaging materials for goods have evolved from natural plants, ceramics, etc. into a pattern consisting mainly of paper, plastic, glass, and metal. With the diversification of packaging materials, the world's per capita consumption of packaging materials has also increased dramatically. According to incomplete statistics, the current per capita consumption of packaging materials in the world is 145 kg/year. The average American packaging material consumption is 250 kg/year in the world, 200 kg/year in Japan, and 30 kg/year in China. However, China has a large population base, so the annual absolute consumption of packaging materials is about 30 million tons. Statistics show that at present, China only uses 240,000 tons of paper per year for packaging boxes, which is equivalent to cutting off 1.68 million trees with thick bowls. Of the solid waste that can be comprehensively utilized in China and renewable resources that can be recycled and reused, the value that has not been recycled has reached more than 50 billion yuan. Now that there are already a number of forests that have become packaging papers, overpacking has added to the depletion of resources and is even more deficient.

Increase consumer burden

Excessive packaging increases the cost of packaging the product. In most cases, this kind of cost is achieved by increasing the selling price of the goods and ultimately the consumer. Without increasing the selling price of the product, the merchant compensates for the excessive packaging cost by reducing the quality or quantity of the packaged product, which ultimately leads to aggravated consumers' burdens and damages the interests of consumers.

Relevant restrictions on overpacking in foreign countries stipulate that due to excessive packaging pollution of the environment, waste of resources and energy, and harming the interests of consumers, many developed countries in the world have made corresponding definitions and penalties for excessive packaging. Germany and Japan are the countries that are most concerned with packaging energy conservation and materials in the world, and they are the first countries to study restricting excessive packaging. As early as 1975, the Food Packaging Research Institute in Munich, Federal Republic of Germany, held a seminar on “the most appropriate packaging”, demonstrating the country’s attitude on this issue, focusing on reducing the cost of packaging materials and packaging, and We seek to achieve the most appropriate standardization of container size and capacity. Germany started advocating "unpackaged" and "simple packaging" for goods four years ago, emphasizing that packaging should be harmless to the ecological environment, human health and recycling, thereby saving energy and resources. If the manufacturer carries out certain packaging on the goods, it must pay “return charges for waste products”. In addition to paying for the purchase of packaging materials, the manufacturer must also pay for the future recycling costs of the packaging materials, thus forcing manufacturers to work harder on packaging design in order to reduce production costs. In order to prevent deceptive packaging, Japan has formulated a "New Packaging Guidelines." Its regulations include: Minimizing the volume of packaging containers, the empty space in the container should not exceed 20% of the container volume, and the packaging cost should not exceed 15% of the product's selling price. %; The packaging should show the value of the product correctly to avoid misleading consumers. The South Korean government believes that excessive packaging is an illegal act. If manufacturers do not reduce the packaging ratio and layers of products according to government regulations, they will be fined up to 3 million won. In order to implement the restrictions on drug packaging ratio and number of layers, the Korean government has three major measures to regulate manufacturers, check packaging, reward labels, and fines for violating packaging standards.