Post-consumer packaging waste from express delivery in China
Huabo Duana,⁎,1, Guanghan Songa,1, Shen Qub, Xiaobin Dongc, Ming Xub,d,⁎
a School of Civil Engineering, Shenzhen University, 518060, Shenzhen, Chinab School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-1041, USAc State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, ChinadDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-2125, USA
Express delivery plays a vital role in modern economy, but also brings great concern on post-consumerpackaging waste. This study is therefore designed to characterize the material flows and environmental im-plications of post-consumer packaging waste from express delivery in China. While express delivery packaginguses mainly recycled materials, post-consumer packaging wastes are only partially recycled in China. In addi-tion, plastic packaging materials are mainly produced from recycled agricultural films and contain chemicalresidues from pesticide applications which may have significant health impacts on employees and consumers inthe express delivery industry. Policy suggestions are provided for government, express delivery service provi-ders, and consumers to mitigate environmental impacts of post-consumer packaging waste from China’sbooming express delivery industry.
1. Introduction
Online retail is one of the fastest growing industries worldwide,especially in developing countries. In 2017, online retail sales in Chinareached $1.1 trillion (National Bureau of Statistic of China (NBSC,2018), more than the on-line sales volumes in the US and UK combined(Deloitte Research China (DRC, 2017). The booming growth of China’sonline retail has also propelled the boom of a connected, subsequent orconcomitant business—express delivery. In 2017, China’s express de-livery market recorded over 40 billion orders (over 100 million parcelseach day, up by 28% from last year) (State Post Bureau of China (SPBC,2018), which are approximately half of the total number of parcelsshipped worldwide (Loesche, 2017). A business-as-usual projectionestimates 70 billion express delivery packages per year by 2020 (Fig. 1).Currently the majority of express delivery in China happens in high-populated, developed regions such as Pearl River Delta, Yangtze RiverDelta, and Beijing area (State Post Bureau of China (SPBC, 2018).Therefore, this projection represents a lower bound estimation, giventhat less developed regions in China are expected to generate additionalonline retail demand―thus express delivery―with a growing economyand improved infrastructure.
Actually, express delivery sector has kept rapid growth in manycountries. The cost of global express delivery, excluding pickup, line-haul, and sorting, amounts to approximately EUR 70 billion, with
China, Germany, and the US accounting for more than 40% of themarket. It is forecasted that deliveries volumes in Germany and the UScould double over the next ten years (till 2025), reaching roughly 5billion and 25 billion parcels per year respectively (Joerss et al., 2016).Despite the convenience it brings to consumers, online shopping is setto become more popular in the future creating an increasing need toaddress transportation emissions that derive from this trend. Weideli(2013) estimated and compared the carbon footprint of the shoppingprocess through ten consumer buying behaviors. Recent study from theUniversity of California addresses the environmental impact of onlineshopping, indicating that speed deliveries have a heavier carbon foot-print than slower ones (Nguyen, 2018). Stolaroff et al. (2018) con-ducted a scenario analysis for road and drone delivery to compareimpacts among drones and traditional delivery methods and indicatedthat the life-cycle carbon emissions of package delivery by small droneare lower than ground-based delivery. Yi et al. (2017) used life cycleassessment approach to examine the environmental impacts and energyconsumption of delivery packages (separate packaging material) usedfor express purposes.
Meanwhile, express delivery also comes with significant environ-mental problems caused by various packaging materials. For example,Fan et al. (2017) estimated the environmental load of express packa-ging materials consumed in China, and the results indicated that theexpress delivery industry would become a serious burden on China's
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.01.037Received 15 November 2018; Received in revised form 10 January 2019; Accepted 21 January 2019
⁎ Corresponding authors at: School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1041, USA.E-mail addresses: [email protected] (H. Duan), [email protected] (M. Xu).
environment by using life cycle assessment approach. Zhang et al.(2016) has conducted a qualitative analysis on China’s environmentalthreats of internet shopping packaging wastes, and then put forwardsome suggestions for relevant stakeholders. In addition, Dong and Hua(2018) has predicted the intention of express packaging waste recyclingbehavior based on data collected from a questionnaire in China.
Actually, each express delivery order requires multiple packagingmaterials, including corrugated and paperboard boxes, plastic andwoven bags, taps, polystyrene foams, and air-bubble blister stuffing. Forexample, express parcel paper & board waste does contain polyvinylchloride (PVC), mostly originating from sticky tapes. While manypackaging materials such as corrugated boxes can be recycled or re-used, the majority of packaging wastes from express delivery end up inmunicipal solid waste (MSW) streams destined for landfilling or in-cineration or are simply being dumped without proper treatment. Giventhat many packaging wastes contain non-degradable materials such asPVC plastic, polyethylene plastic, expanded polystyrene plastic, polye-ster plastic, and so on, inadequate treatment of packaging waste canlead to significant environmental implications (Rochman, 2013; Liet al., 2016). For example, many packaging wastes do contain PVCplastic, and this is indeed an issue for the plastic recycling industries:the paper mills and the waste incinerators, the non-degradability ofPVC is the least of their worries. It is the non-sale-ability of plasticfractions with PVC, the emissions and corrosion under thermal treat-ment. Almost all currently used plastic materials are non-degradableand this mostly an issue on landfill sites, as road-side litter and in plasticsoup.
While reports on environmental impacts of booming express de-livery in China have increasingly appeared in literature and newsmedia, no rigorous estimates exist for the amount, variety, and en-vironmental impacts of packaging waste generated by China’s expressdelivery industry.
In this work, the volume, variety, and end-of-life (EoL) treatments ofpackaging waste generated from express delivery in China from 1996 to2017 is estimated. Both searching publically available statistics dataand field surveys were conducted to obtain these estimates. In addition,the increase in packaging waste from express delivery to 2020 is pre-dicted (State Post Bureau of China (SPBC, 2017). Lacking informationon future recycling infrastructure for packaging waste, our projectionrepresents a business-as-usual scenario. Moreover, environmental im-pacts associated with overall life for plastic packaging waste has beenqualitatively evaluated.
2. Method and materials
Dynamic material flow analysis (MFA) for quanfying and predicting
post-consumer packaging waste from express delivery involves thefollowing steps:
STEP 1: Determine the delivery quantity (pieces) of express deliveryin a given year (n). The total amount of delivered parcels in a given yearwere derived from the sum of the amount of inter-city express parcelsand the amount of the intra-city express parcels:
= +D D Dn c n u n, , (1)
where Dn represents the total delivery quantity in a given year; c standsfor the inter-city express service, and u indicates intra-city expressservice.
Forecasted data (from 2018 to 2020) were obtained from ‘TheNational 13th Five-Year Plan for Express Delivery Sector’ released by StatePost Bureau in China (SPBC) in 2017.
STEP 2: Determine the unit weight of various packaging materialcontained in each type of express delivery packages. Then sum them upto arrive at the total weight of each type of packaging material and allscrap packaging materials for a given year:
∑ ∑ ∑=W Q D f* *m nt j i
m t j n i, , ,(2)
∑=W Wnm
m n,(3)
where Wm n, represents the total weight of each type of packaging ma-terials (m); Wn indicates the total weight of all scrap packaging mate-rials; Qm t j, , (unit weight, by kg/piece) means the weight of each type ofpackaging material, considering the sizes represented by j (large,middle and small packages with various weight per piece) and the typesof different packages (t); and fi stands for the fractions of differentpackages for various type (i) of express service (c or u).
STEP 3: Calculate the EoL flows for different packaging materials(reused, recycled and co-disposed in MSW stream) by weight:
∑=E W R*m nk
m n m k, , ,(4)
where Em n, means the EoL flows for each type packaging materials andRk indicates the proporations of their various EoL flows.
2.1. Field survey and data collection
1) Quantity of express delivery orders: Data were retrieved from variousofficial statistics (see Table 1). Data include the quantity (pieces),number of intra- and inter-city deliveries, domestic and interna-tional deliveries, and their trading volumes in monetary values. Inthis study, international deliveries were excluded due to the dataunavailability.
2) EoL stage (see Table S1): Gathering a sample size of approximately10,000 electronic order slips showing delivery origin and destina-tion to determine the transportation mode and distance of deliveredmails and parcels. In addition, this study conducted field in-vestigations in distribution centers, which distributed (or collected)packages to (or from) consumers, to understand the types, unitweights, and contents of external packaging materials with ap-proximately 700 mails and parcels. Eight MSW collection centers inShenzhen, Shanghai, and Taiyuan were investigated to characterizethe collection rate for post-consumer packaging materials and fur-ther recycling and treatment activities.
3) Environmental impacts of packaging materials: Potentials environ-mental impacts (qualitative observations) from the manufacturingand recycling of various packaging materials are also drawn fromfield investigations (shown in Table S1).
2.2. Model uncertainties
The shares of packaging materials, and their weights and recycling
Fig. 1. Total volume of express delivery packages and weight of packagingwastes from 1996 to 2020 in China.Data sources: The quantity (by pieces) of deliveries is from the official statisticsdata by National Bureau of Statistics of China and State Post Bureau of China.The weight of deliveries is based on our own estimates (The one-time standarddeviation is depicted as error bars with 67% confidence interval). Dash lines arepredicted.
H. Duan et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 144 (2019) 137–143
138
rates have large uncertainties according to our investigations. Properdistributions for a few parameters have been determined by using theFit function of Crystal Ball software. Details can be found in SI. MonteCarlo (MC) simulation was conducted to capture uncertainties asso-ciated with these parameters by using MS office (excel spreadsheet).However, bottom-up data (e.g., number of deliveries, weights ofpackaging material use) and additional field surveys with broadergeographical coverage on post-consumer packaging material collectionrates and further treatment pathways can help reduce such un-certainties and improve the robustness of results.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Quantifying the packaging waste
In 2017, over 40 billion pieces of packages and parcels were de-livered in China (State Post Bureau of China (SPBC, 2018). Our survey(Fig. 2) shows that 46.5% of these deliveries used corrugated boxes,followed by plastic bags (30.4%), mixed packages (corrugated boxescovered by plastic bags, 10.1%), envelopes (5.0%), polystyrene foamedboxes (4.2%), and woven bags (2.8%).
It was estimated that 7.8 million metric tons (MMT) (one-timestandard deviation: 0.5) of packaging waste were generated in 2017from the 40 billion packages or parcels delivered in China. This isequivalent to approximately 4.1% (± 0.3%) of China’s total MSWgeneration in 2017, or the total MSW generation of some countries suchas the Netherlands, Malaysia, and Algeria in 2016 (Hoornweg andBhada-Tata, 2012). Fig. 3 shows that 6.7 MMT out of the total 7.8 MMT(86%) packaging waste generated in 2017 were scrap corrugated pa-pers (boxes) and only 0.28 MMT (3.6%) were plastic materials. Speci-fically, 97% (by weight) of the plastics used in packaging were mainlyfrom recycled polyethylene materials, only a small fraction came fromvirgin materials in terms of surveys on relevant stakeholders (See TableS1) and laboratory analysis (FTIR analysis of plastic packaging mate-rials in SI).
3.2. Characterize the flow of packaging waste
In general, packaging materials used in express delivery can becategorized into either paper-based streams or plastic-based streams.Paper-based streams include corrugated papers, envelopes, and orderslip, while plastic-based streams include plastic bags, woven bags,foamed plastic boxes, tapes (adhesive), void fill materials such aspolystyrene foams, and air-bubble blister stuffing. This study furtherexamines the material flows of corrugated boxes and plastic bags giventheir dominance in packaging materials used in express delivery inChina. Fig. 4 shows that recycled materials all together contribute toapproximately 95% of corrugated boxes used in China’s express de-livery. Despite the high utilization of recycled materials, the recyclingrate of corrugated boxes used in express delivery is modest. In terms ofour surveys, approximately 5–15% of discarded corrugated boxes fromexpress delivery in China are mixed in MSW stream for incineration(16%), landfilling (32%), or direct dumping (3%) (National Bureau ofStatistic of China (NBSC, 2018). Majority of the rest are mainly recycledby informal recyclers. Note that 40–45% of materials used to producecorrugated boxes for express delivery are scrap papers imported fromother countries, mostly developed countries (Sun, 2015). The recentban on selected foreign wastes by the Chinese government targets un-sorted scrap papers (Walker, 2018). As a result, on one hand, the supplyfor scrap papers to produce corrugated boxes in China will be sig-nificantly disrupted in the short run. But in the long run, increasing therecycling rate for domestic scrap boxes from express delivery can makeup the void left from the foreign waste ban. One the other hand, it isnecessary to further evaluate on that whether it will be enough to coverthe needs if all packaging waste gets recycled? More importantly, arethere already collection and sorting capacities existing in China, thatTa
ble1
Datasources.
Variable
Symbo
lUnit
Sources
Ann
ualnu
mbe
rof
deliv
eries
B2Can
dC2C
;D
c,pieces
1996
-200
7:de
liveryqu
antity
(bypieces)from
statisticrepo
rtsreleased
byNationa
lBureauof
Statistic
sof
China
.Inter-
andintra-city
deliv
eries
Du
2008
-201
7:de
liveryqu
antity
(bypieces)from
statisticrepo
rtsreleased
byNationa
lPostB
ureauof
China
.20
18-202
0:Projection
data
from
Chine
seexpressindu
stry
plan
ning
intheNationa
l13thFive
-YearPlan
ofChina
.Eo
Lch
aracteristics
Type
s(and
sizes)
ofdifferen
texpressde
liverypa
ckag
es,theuseof
variou
spa
ckag
ingmaterials,theirco
rrespo
ndingweigh
tsan
dEo
Lflow
sQ
mtj,,
kgFieldsurvey
sco
nduc
tedbe
tween20
16an
d20
17(Tab
leS2
)to
determ
inethetype
s(t)of
expressde
livery
consideringthedive
rsitiesof
mateirals
(m)an
dsizes(j)of
packag
es(large
,middle,
andsm
all),their
correspo
ndingweigh
ts(Q
)an
dEo
Lflow
s(f
) .f i
%
Note:
Interm
sof
Nationa
lStand
ardforexpresssector
-“Ex
pressservice-
Part1to
3:Ba
sicterm
inolog
y,Organ
izationrequ
irem
ents,a
ndSe
rviceproc
edures
(GB/
T27
917-20
11),Ex
pressde
liverymeans
thede
liveryof
both
intra-city
andinter-city
consum
erpa
ckag
es,mainlyinclud
ingexpressde
liveriesfrom
E-co
mmerce
toCustomer
(on-lin
eshop
ping
,B2
C),
andCustomer
toCustomer
(C2C
).Bu
sine
ssto
Busine
ss(ind
ustrialprod
ucts
deliv
eringan
dtran
sportation
)areou
tof
scop
eforstud
ydu
eto
theda
taun
availability.
H. Duan et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 144 (2019) 137–143
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would enable efficient recycling in this way? If not, additional invest-ments should be taken into consideration.
Unlike corrugated boxes, almost all plastic wastes from China’sexpress delivery industry are mixed with other MSWs for landfilling(63%) and incineration (30%) (National Bureau of Statistic of China(NBSC, 2018), with about 7% being directly dumped. The lack of re-cycling activity for packaging plastics is mainly due to the relativelyhigh cost of separation and transport and the relatively low value ofrecycled plastics. Similar to corrugated boxes, plastic bags used forexpress delivery are predominately produced from recycled plastics(95%), with 95% from domestic sources (Fig. 5). Although China’s re-cent ban on foreign waste also includes waste plastics, the supply ofrecycled waste plastics for producing plastic bags used in express de-livery will not be significantly affected.
Notably, the majority of recycled plastics used to produce plasticbags for express delivery packaging in China comes from the recycledpolyethylene film in agriculture sector - using polyethylene, polyester,phthalate esters and other plastic films in agricultural mulching andgreenhouses in terms of surveys (Table S1) and related literature (Yanet al., 2014; World Bank Group (WB, 2017). In China, agricultural
practices use large amounts of pesticides and cause significant con-tamination in soil, surface water and groundwater. For example, or-ganochlorine pesticides (OCPs) have been found to be the primary or-ganic contaminant in agricultural soils in China (Niu et al., 2016; Sunet al., 2018); phthalic acid esters (PAEs), a class of chemicals that arewidely used as plasticizers) are also commonly found as major soilcontaminants (World Bank Group (WB, 2017). Potentially, pesticideresidues from agricultural uses can be transferred to the express de-livery industry through the remanufacturing of plastic bags from re-cycled plastics used in the agriculture sector. Such risk is particularlylarge in China because waste plastics used in agriculture are largelyhandled through informal recycling. Informal recyclers normally do nothave proper protection to prevent exposure to pesticide residues andcleaning procedures to remove contaminants from recycled plastics(our survey, Table S2). Contaminants transferred from agriculturalplastic waste can be harmful for express delivery workers and con-sumers through direct exposure. Landfilling waste plastics from expressdelivery in turn contaminates the soil. Although the causal relationshipbetween farmland contamination and toxicity risks of packaging plas-tics seems to be plausible, little evidence has been provided in the lit-erature, which represents an interesting future research avenue.
While there is still great challenge to reduce and recycle packagingmaterials (including the promotion of biodegradable materials) facingdeveloped countries (Rossi et al., 2015; Tencati et al., 2016; Ferreiraet al., 2017b), there is relatively little work to look at and examine theenvironmental impact of express delivery packaging materials. Becausehardly any low-value or low-quality recycled plastic is used in thissector, as in many other packaging purposes (Williams et al., 2018).There are rigid regulations to use clean but high-quality packagingmaterials for express delivery service and other sectors (Ferreira et al.,2017a; Williams et al., 2018).
4. Conclusions and policy implications
Our study provides the first estimate of packaging waste from theexpress delivery industry in China. Both paper-based and plastic-basedpackaging materials used in express delivery are mainly from recycledmaterials. However, recycling of the EoL packaging materials can beimproved. Currently less than 40% of the paper-based packaging ma-terials are recycled and almost no plastic-based materials are recycled.Moreover, plastic packaging materials are mainly produced from re-cycled agricultural films and contain chemical residues from pesticide
Fig. 2. Estimated composition of express delivery packages and parcels in China in 2017.*corrugated boxes covered by plastic bags.
Fig. 3. Packaging waste generated from express delivery in China in 2017.*include other paper materials such as paper tube packaging (28 t) and paper-based packaging tape core (29 t). The one-time standard deviation is depictedas error bars with 67% confidence interval.
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applications which may have significant health impacts on employeesand consumers in the express delivery lifecycle.
Government, express delivery service providers, and consumers canrespectively play important role in enhancing the circular economy ofpackaging materials in China’s express delivery industry.
• First, government should consider developing policies similar to theextended producer responsibility (EPR) to incentivize express de-livery service providers to recycle post-consumer packaging waste.EPR extends the producer’s responsibility for its products beyondthe use phase to the EoL (Spicer and Johnson, 2004; Subramanianet al., 2009). Under EPR, producers are responsible for recycling andproperly treating and disposing post-consumer waste generatedfrom their products. However, in express delivery industry, it isexpress delivery service providers which directly interact withconsumers, rather than the “producer” of packaging materials.Therefore, an ERP-like policy for packaging materials in expressdelivery needs to extend the responsibility of express delivery ser-vice providers—extended service-provider responsibility—to in-centivize them to explore ways to improve the recycling of post-consumer packaging materials. At the same time, governmentshould also consider including recyclability as a criterion in industrystandards for packaging products used in express delivery. Currentstandards implemented by the Chinese government do not considerenvironmental sustainability for packaging products (Liu and Liu,2015; Hao et al., 2019).
• Second, express delivery service providers, especially large
companies with significant market shares, need to go beyond com-pliance with existing legal and regulatory standards to take on theirsocial responsibilities (Piecyk and Björklund, 2015). They couldvoluntarily take an “extended service-provider responsibility” forpackaging products they use. Using a life cycle thinking (Badurdeenet al., 2009; Hellweg and Canals, 2014), they can push manu-facturers to implement eco-design strategies to design packagingproducts for improved sustainability. Packaging products need to bedesigned for easy disassembly and recycling (Donnelly et al., 2006;Knight and Jenkins, 2009). Single-use corrugated boxes and plasticbags should be replaced by alternatives that can be used multipletimes. Business model innovations also need to be explored to de-velop appropriate solutions to implement recycling of packagingmaterials in the marketplace (Tong et al., 2018). In the short term,these actions may come with increased cost for express deliveryservice providers; but in the long term corporate social responsi-bility would lead to comparative advantages in a highly competitivemarket (Porter and Kramer, 2006).
• Finally, public awareness needs to be raised with respect to en-vironmental consequences of post-consumer packaging materials toencourage consumers and communities to sort domestic waste andseparate packaging waste from other waste streams for recycling.Waste sorting and recycling facilities need to be available in re-sidential neighborhoods and commercial buildings.
Beyond recycling of post-consumer packaging materials, our studyalso reveals a potential health threat to employees in the express
Fig. 4. Flows of corrugated boxes in China’s express delivery industry in 2017 (by weight).
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delivery industry due to direct exposures to plastic packaging materialswhich are made primarily from recycled agricultural plastic filmscontaining harmful chemical residues from pesticide use. To the best ofour knowledge, no study has been done to test chemical residues inplastic packaging materials used in China and evaluate the health riskto express delivery workers. Given that express delivery employeesgenerally receive below average compensation and health care cov-erage comparing with other urban residents in China, their exposures toharmful chemical residues in plastic packaging materials may lead tosignificant environmental justice issues in future. Further study toevaluate the employee health risk from plastic packaging materials isurgently needed.
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the Scientific Research Fund ofIntroduced High Talent of Shenzhen University (827-000044). Theauthors thank the editor and three anonymous reviewers for theirconstructive suggestions, from which this manuscript has benefitedconsiderably.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in theonline version, at doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.01.037.
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