China Exclusive: China's e-shopping frenzy leads to garbage hangover

Beijing shop owner Shi Chun wraps a small package in several layers of plastic tape before sending it to the courier.

The baby product seller wants her customers to click the "tightly and nicely packaged" button when reviewing her products on Taobao.com, the online shopping mall. Over-packaging is never her concern.

Click and buy, get the delivery and throw away the packaging -- convenience trumps all for China's e-shoppers.

"I never thought about whether or how the tape and packaging material are recycled," said Shi. She uses 20,000 meters of tape every month for her deliveries.

While shoppers toss the last of the boxes from Singles' Day, another tidal wave of bubble wrap and styrofoam threatens to overwhelm landfills as China's second biggest online shopping day approaches on December 12, or "Double 12." Some 760 million packages were delivered this year for Singles' Day on Nov. 11, China's top day for cyber sales.

No country in the world delivers more packages than China. In 2014, about 14 billion packages were delivered, and most of the packaging -- cardboard, foam plastic, plastic bags and other stuffing materials -- went into garbage bins.

Based on an average weight of 200 grams, 2.8 million tons of garbage from parcels were produced in 2014, enough to fill 200,000 football fields. The tape alone could circle the earth 300 times.

"Most of the packaging materials can be recycled, but in reality, very few of them are," said Chen Jian, a recycling expert in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

In Xi'an, only 60 percent of the cardboard from packages is recycled each year. Plastic bags and stuffing materials, which add up to roughly 350 tons every year, are never recycled and end up in landfills.

"The waste of resources and environmental burden cannot be ignored," said Chen, who has spent 20 years working in the recycling business.

One ton of paper pulp can be turned into 0.8 tons of new paper, equal to saving 17 trees, 1.2 tons of coal and 600 kilowatts of electricity, according to Tang Yanju, secretary of the waste paper branch of the China Resource Recycling Association.

Some courier companies do offer to collect used packaging when possible, but the volume is limited due to staff shortages.

"We sometimes pick up used packaging from customers, but most of our manpower is used to ensure timely delivery. The amount for recycling is quite limited," said a district manager at Best Express courier company.

RECYCLING INDUSTRY BLUES

Every day, sanitation worker Zhang collects dozens of paper cartons from the neighborhood where she works in southern Xi'an. She sells the cartons for extra income at 30 cents per kilogram, a meager sum that is often more trouble than it's worth.

"The price is too low, and I have to peel off the sticky tape from the boxes," she said.

Recycling waste stations also struggle to cope with the volume of unsorted garbage in Chinese cities. In the last six years in Xi'an, the number of recycling waste stations fell from 1,050 to 600, and the number of employees dropped from 12,000 to 4,000.

Liu Yong, deputy secretary of the Shaanxi provincial Recycled Resource Circulation Industry Association, said the recycling industry appears more troubled than ever: sorters are poorly trained, recycling centers are further away from the city, and recyclable materials are easily tainted by non-recyclable elements.

Industry experts are calling for more state support and better public awareness.

"More tax and fee incentives are needed to improve the recycling industry," said Jin Li, director of circulation at the Shaanxi commerce department.

Meanwhile, clear rules should be made to curb excess packaging and manage disposal, he said. Endi