Green groups raise alarm over China’s growing e-commerce waste mountain
- Retailers are waiting for recycling regulations instead of taking initiative, campaigners say
- Draft packaging standards were published last month, and e-commerce companies say they have waste reduction plans in operation
The amount of waste accumulated by China’s e-commerce and express delivery sectors could more than quadruple by 2025 unless action is taken to reduce it, environmental groups said on Monday as the online shopping spree known as Singles’ Day set sales records.
The volume of packaging material used by the sectors was 9.4 million tonnes last year, and was on course to reach 41.3 million tonnes by 2025 if they kept up the rate of increase, Greenpeace and other non-government bodies said in a report.
“The e-commerce giants have barely offered even superficial responses,” Tang Damin, a plastics campaigner with Greenpeace in Beijing, said. “They’re biding their time for regulations to come out.”
Sales hit 84 billion yuan (US$12 billion) in the first hour of the Singles’ Day annual event, up 22 per cent from last year, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group said.
As e-commerce companies work to extend their reach into rural regions, 1.88 billion packages were delivered from November 11 to November 16 last year, an annual increase of almost 26 per cent, the State Post Bureau said.
There was no official figure for the amount of waste generated, but Greenpeace estimated that it exceeded 250,000 tonnes.