With the volume of express delivery constantly increasing, where will the large amount of express delivery waste go? This year's "Double 11", the express delivery industry began to try to solve this problem. Cainiao Network and the China Environmental Protection Foundation launched the "Return Box Plan" in China, and set up carton recycling stations in more than 10 universities in Beijing, including Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing Institute of Technology, and China University of Petroleum. Reporters visited and saw that through the establishment of recycling stations, consumers' awareness of carton recycling is being formed.

Take express cartons and leave them at the recycling station

The day before yesterday evening, as the bell rang at the end of get out of class at the new campus of Beijing University of Technology in Changping, a large number of students flocked to the Cainiao Station in a corner of the campus. Reporters found that many students did not leave directly after picking up the express delivery, but came to the carton recycling station at the door, unpacked the express delivery, and threw the carton into the recycling cabinet.

Chen Qiong, a sophomore, unpacked three cartons respectively. She opened her schoolbag and stuffed small commodities such as skin care products and mobile phone cases purchased online into it one by one. "It's actually quite troublesome to carry the express cartons back to the dormitory and then throw them away. It's better to just leave them here." Chen Qiong said that when she was a freshman, she always carried large and small express boxes to the dormitory building and threw them away. Now that there is a recycling station, she has developed the habit of not taking the cartons away. The reporter saw that in half an hour, the originally empty recycling cabinet was filled with cartons.

Next to the dormitory building on campus, the outdoor recycling point set up by the Environmental Protection Volunteer Association of Beijing University of Chemical Technology has also attracted many students. Use Alipay or Taobao APP to scan the QR code posted on the table, enter your name and the number of cartons donated, and you can receive the prize on the spot. Zeng Rui, the head of the resource recycling team of the Environmental Protection Association, said that as long as you participate in donating cartons, you can receive Tmall coupons. If you donate 10 cartons, Cainiao will work with public welfare organizations to plant a tree in the name of the donor. The association has also launched an additional dormitory door-to-door recycling service. The reporter saw that after an afternoon of recycling activities, the recycling bin was filled with flattened cartons.

Li Tianjiao, the person in charge of Cainiao Green Action, introduced that after "Double 11", the carton recycling station in Cainiao Station will be used routinely.

Recycled cartons go directly to paper mills

Where will the recycled cartons go? Unlike the previous waste cartons flowing into the surrounding waste recycling stations and then to the packaging stations, this time Cainiao has joined forces with Huanyu International, a company specializing in waste paper recycling business, to take joint action. In the past few days, Huanyu International's Beijing team has been traveling back and forth between various Cainiao Stations every day, collecting and packaging cartons and transporting them directly to the company's paper mills in Anhui and Zhejiang. The waste cartons are then processed into new cartons.

Wu Haiyan, general manager of Huanyu International China, introduced that for a long time, many consumers would throw cartons into the trash can along with other garbage. Some relatively intact cartons were picked up by scavengers and sold to waste collection stations, and then went through packaging stations and traders before finally reaching the paper mills. Many links not only reduce the recycling efficiency and increase the recycling cost of cartons, but also the quality of cartons received by paper mills is uneven, which makes it difficult for factories to inspect them. "If waste cartons are recycled as soon as they are produced, the recycling efficiency will be greatly improved and the recycling quality will be more controllable." She said that in an ideal situation, a courier carton made of virgin wood pulp can be recycled 12 times.

"The traditional mode of paper mills purchasing waste paper raw materials is to directly collect goods from packaging stations. The new mode discussed by Huanyu International and Cainiao is to directly extend to the consumer end to recycle cartons." Wu Haiyan told reporters that since the launch of this environmental protection campaign, consumers' awareness of carton recycling has been significantly improved. On the 12th, an average of only a few hundred cartons were recycled at a single post station, but on the 14th, the recycling volume of many posts increased by 300% month-on-month. "It is expected that the recycling volume will have an explosive growth in the next few days. The overall recycling volume of cartons from the 12th to the 18th is conservatively estimated to reach millions."

The recycling rate of packaging is less than 20%

Tang Yanju, secretary-general of the Waste Paper Branch of the China Renewable Resources Recycling Association, told reporters that express delivery is full of "treasures". Not only can carton packaging be recycled, but plastic packaging bags, foamed plastics and foam used for filling can also be reused. If the front-end classification is proper and the recycling model is reasonable, 90% of packaging waste can be effectively recycled. In 2016, the number of express delivery orders in Beijing was about 1.414 billion. According to the proportion of various packaging wastes, it can be converted into about 300,000 tons of waste paper and about 30,000 tons of various waste plastics.

However, compared with the recycling of cartons, it is more difficult to recycle waste plastics with lower value. Surveys show that the recycling rate of all packaging materials in China is less than 20%, of which the recycling rate of paper is less than half, and the recycling of plastic fillers is almost zero.

In order to reduce express delivery waste at the source, during this year's "Double 11", Cainiao, together with logistics partners and merchants, launched 20 "green warehouses" for the first time worldwide. Packages sent from the "green warehouses" will use tape-free express boxes and environmentally friendly express bags. During the "Double 11" period, the 20 "green warehouses" will work with multiple brands to send out millions of green packages.

Plastic Industry Video