Promote use of greener packaging to prevent plastic killing the oceans

A vendor offers a free plastic bag as she sells vegetables in a market in the Chaoyang district of Beijing on May 28, 2011. [Photo by Wang Jing / China Daily]

A RECENT NATIONAL SURVEY on logistics shows that the number of deliveries in 2016 reached 31.2 billion. This represents huge quantities of environmentally harmful adhesive tape and plastic packaging materials: China Youth Daily comments:

While enjoying the convenience of express deliveries, few of us stop to think about where all the plastic packaging materials end up. Data show that not only do they become landfill, they now also show a trend of polluting the oceans as well.

At the UN Ocean Conference, held from June 5 to 9, it was pointed out that pollution is seriously hurting the health of our oceans. By the year 2050, the total weight of plastic in the oceans might exceed that of fish.

That conclusion does not come from nothing. A study conducted by a team led by Jenna Jambeck of the University of Georgia found that almost all countries that have a coastline have put plastic garbage into the ocean. Developing countries put even more than developed ones because they in general have a lower rate of recycling.

China's rate of recovering used plastics is only about 20 percent, which is rather low compared with the 45 percent of developed economies. As a result, its imports of waste plastic had been constantly growing, from 7.4 million tons in 2010 to more than 8 million tons in 2014.

Plastic garbage is fatal to the ecology of the ocean. When some oceanic creatures eat them, they die. Even if some can digest the plastic garbage in small grains, they will accumulate the harmful chemical matters inside their body, which in turn harms fish-eating humans.

In order to solve this, China needs to shoulder its responsibility as a major producer and consumer of plastics. It needs to cut the use of plastics in the express delivery industry and food packaging, as well as propel the use of more environmentally friendly packaging materials in people's daily life.

As early as 2006, China published standards on biodegradable plastics, which stated that plastic bags and plastics used for parcels should decompose by more than 90 percent within 180 days in the earth. In December, government guidelines were issued to accelerate the transformation and development of China's packaging industry, and promote the use of environmentally friendly packaging materials. Some domestic enterprises are already investing in green packaging materials, but it is time to accelerate the use of green packaging materials and their recycling.