Written by Liu Xueer of AI Finance and Economics

Editor Chen Fang

83 billion pieces, a year-on-year increase of 30.8. This is the report card of my country’s express delivery industry in 2020. As a global China, the largest express delivery country, has once again set a new record.

The year 2020 that has just passed can be said to be a year of rapid development for my country's express delivery industry. The business volume has exceeded the two marks of 50 billion pieces and 80 billion pieces, and from 50 billion pieces to 80 billion pieces, It only took just over three months.

This can be called China’s speed. In 2006, my country’s express delivery business volume was only 1 billion pieces. Eight years later, it exceeded 10 billion pieces in 2014. Six years later, it exceeded 50 billion pieces. The main reasons behind the rapid development of the express delivery industry are: Thanks to the rapid development of online shopping. Calculated based on 2020 data, it is equivalent to China's 1.4 billion people receiving about 5 express delivery items per month.

However, behind the rapid growth of express delivery business, the problem of garbage pollution is also becoming increasingly serious.

Picture/Visual China

Take the Jinan Domestic Waste Treatment Center as an example. As early as 2017, aerial photography discovered that the garbage mountain here is 30 meters high. Several vehicles After the garbage truck has finished dumping, the bulldozers take turns pushing the garbage in various packaging bags to the landfill. Occasionally, the wind blows and the plastic bags are blown all over the sky. It is understood that this place receives 4,500 to 5,000 tons of garbage from Jinan every day, and even exceeded 5,000 tons in the days after Double 11, including a large amount of express packaging waste.

Today, the processing capacity of express delivery waste has not kept pace with the development of the express delivery industry. Waste and pollution are happening every day, and even waste recycling stations that penetrate deep into the city's capillaries cannot solve the problem.

Some people’s livelihood

The waste recycling station seems to be a bit separated from the city. In Beijing’s North Third Ring Road, where there are many high-rise buildings, the street-side waste recycling station in a community seems to have been transformed from the last century. When I traveled back in time in the 1990s, the ground was uneven, with several pits and holes. The white walls were mottled, and some of the wall coverings had fallen off. A wall clock and empty birdcage hang on the wall, and newspapers, metal, cardboard boxes, etc. are piled in the room.

This store belongs to Qian Jianguo. Every time someone brings scraps to his door, he weighs them on the scale at the door. After calculating the price, he takes out a small scrap from the aluminum pot next to him. He handed the bills and coins to the other party, then reached out and threw the waste into the two large trucks at the door where cardboard boxes and metal were placed.

Qian Jianguo, who is in his 50s this year, has been dealing with scraps for half his life. He started the scrap purchasing business more than 20 years ago. He bought this store a few years ago and later took his wife and son to build it together. He revealed that this store belongs to a renewable resource recycling company, and they receive a fixed monthly salary plus commission, with each person earning an annual income of 40,000 to 50,000 yuan.

Qian Jianguo is very satisfied with the current market. “The price of cartons has increased. It used to cost 1.2-1.3 yuan per kilogram. The worst time was in 2013-2014, when it was only 50 or 60 cents. Now it has risen to 1.5 yuan. Yuan." This is of course a good thing for Qian Jianguo, because there have been more and more express cartons in recent years, and cartons account for 70 to 80% of their recycling.

This is of course due to the rapid development of the express delivery industry. As the volume of express parcels in our country increases day by day, the carton recycling business is booming. Zhang Yin, the "waste paper giant", became the richest woman in China by breaking cartons. In 1957 Born in 2010, she jumped into the waste paper recycling industry in Shenzhen with 30,000 yuan after investigation. She made a lot of money by returning waste paper from Hong Kong to the mainland. Later, she founded Zhongnan Paper Industry, and her business scope also expanded to the United States. The United States recycles waste paper at low prices and sells it back to China. In 2006, she finally surpassed Huang Guangyu and became the first richest woman in China.

The wealth story of cardboard waste recycling has attracted more than 12 million people to work.

The people who came to pay for the Jianguo Recycling Station include cleaners and old people who don't have much to do. Sometimes, in order to grab business, there will be competition for territory. Some sites compete with each other, and some people compete with each other.

“It was often the sanitation staff in the community who did not allow the old scavengers to pick up rubbish. There were fights before 2010, and they would hit whatever they encountered. I have seen sticks and shovels, but I have never seen wine bottles. After that, When there are less fights, it’s usually just shouting and yelling. After all, it’s not cost-effective for anyone to call the police,” Qian Jianguo said.

In contrast, it was much more difficult for Li Tietie and his son to park a large truck on the side of the road to collect scrap. They contracted part of Wangjing, Beijing, from a recycling resource utilization company. They drove a large truck to the roadside every day and stayed there from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., almost all year round except for Chinese New Year and rainy and snowy days.

The father and son are from Xinyang, Henan. Li Tietie, 30, has been doing this for five or six years. His wife and children are all in his hometown. A few years ago, he was too busy to take over his old father and help him. He also has a sister who is here. Yanjiao also does this business. Every morning at around six o'clock, the father and son have to get up, wash up in a hurry, drink porridge, and then drive an hour from their rental house outside the Sixth Ring Road to their "work place" on the Fourth Ring Road.

Cartons also account for 70% to 80% of the recyclables of Li Tietie and his son. They lament that there have been more and more express cartons recently, and they can hold hundreds of kilograms every day, filling more than half a truck, and the rest The space is decorated with metal debris, and large bags containing plastic bottles are tied to the roof of the car. From time to time, people from nearby scavengers or community waste stations come over. Li Titie is usually responsible for loading the scales, and his father is responsible for coding the goods. Next to it is a row of big trees that have lost all their leaves, and there is a cement platform on the edge of the withered grass in the green belt. In his spare time, my father would wash his hands with ice cubes on the grass and sit on the platform to smoke.

For father and son Qian Jianguo and Li Titie, waste recycling gave them the opportunity to settle in the city of Beijing. Li Tietie's father, a simple man, was quite content. "The income is not bad, more than 100,000 yuan a year for two people, which is better than farming." Qian Jianguo saw clearly, "This is what we live in. We have no education or diplomas, so there is nothing we can do about it." This is the only way to do it, it’s not very profitable, but it’s not very risky.”

The cost of express garbage disposal will be as high as 4.3 billion

Although the carton recycling activity has even made a group of people rich. , but looking at the garbage generated by the entire express delivery industry, not all garbage can be turned into treasure. Those that cannot be recycled cannot be reused, which ultimately brings serious environmental pollution problems to society.

A report jointly released by the China Environmental Protection Federation on China’s express packaging waste states that from 2000 to 2018, in China’s megacities, the increase in express packaging waste has accounted for 93% of the increase in domestic waste. , this indicator also soared to 85-90 in some large cities.

Picture/Visual China

Behind the surge in express delivery waste is the substantial increase in the use of express packaging. From 2000 to 2018, express packaging increased from 22,600 tons to 9.41 million tons, of which paper accounted for 91% and plastic bags accounted for 9%. What is this concept? To produce, use, and process 9.41 million tons of garbage will emit 1,303 tons of carbon dioxide, which requires 710 million trees to absorb it.

However, much less of the express delivery waste can actually be recycled than expected. It is understood that my country's express packaging is mainly cartons and plastic bags. Carton express packaging accounts for about 44.03%, plastic bag packaging accounts for about 33.5%, bagged cartons account for about 9.47%, and other packaging materials such as woven bags, foam boxes, documents Bags, etc., as well as auxiliary materials such as waybills, tapes, and fillers.

Among them, less than 5% of cartons are reused, 80% are recycled by weight, and 15% are mixed with domestic garbage. The recycling level of plastic bags is even lower. Except for foam boxes, In addition to the recycling rate of 70-80%, tapes, waybills, and plastic bags are all "difficult to recycle". Calculated by mass, 99% of express packaging waste plastics are mixed into domestic garbage and are incinerated or landfilled.

Zhao Shuhui works at a garbage classification and processing station in a community in Wangjing, Beijing. Her daily job is to receive a small tricycle loaded with six garbage cans, and then operate the machine to pour the garbage into the large garbage truck. "There are a lot of plastic bags in domestic garbage, and there is also express packaging waste. There are more than ten tons of garbage every day in several nearby communities."

In his impression, Zhao Shuhui remembers that the recycling station no longer accepts various colors and bad ones. For plastic bags, “I used to charge 30, 40 cents, or even 78 cents per kilogram, but now I only accept white, thick, clean plastic bags, which cost 1 yuan per kilogram, and only some express garbage bags meet the requirements.”

Cartons and foam boxes are the “golden houses” for recyclers. In a community on the North Third Ring Road 10 kilometers away from this community, a man wearing a dark gray cotton-padded jacket was riding around on a small garbage truck. The two large woven bags tied behind the car were as clean as new, filled with foam boxes and garbage. Cartons, he said they won’t accept plastic bags.

Peng Junjie, an assistant researcher at the Institute of Urban and Environmental Studies of the Henan Academy of Social Sciences, once revealed that as a synthetic macromolecular polymer, the biggest hazards of plastic are its non-degradability and the toxic gases produced by combustion, such as toluene. , hydrogen chloride, etc. A small amount can cause blindness. In addition, express waste that is not effectively used will increase the cost of waste disposal. According to the growth rate of the express delivery industry, a report estimates that by 2025, the amount of express packaging that needs to be landfilled in China will reach 6.09 million tons, and the processing cost will be nearly 4.3 billion yuan.

Why is green recycling so difficult?

Why does express delivery waste cause so much waste? Essentially, this is a numerical game that measures the input-output ratio.

For example, express plastic packaging, which has the lowest recycling rate, is not very popular. The Shanghai Greening and City Appearance Bureau once classified waste plastics as recyclables, foam plastics as low-value recyclables, and stained plastic bags as blacklisted as "garbage types not suitable for inclusion in recyclables."

It’s all about cost. Zhang Hongming, CEO of Yidaithu, a garbage classification and recycling platform, once revealed that foam plastics can be made into foam plastic bricks after recycling, but they are large in size, light in weight, and have high logistics and warehousing costs, making it difficult to promote in most areas, and express delivery outer packaging bags are second-level Plastics can theoretically be recycled and refined into oil, but due to their high cost, they are considered a type of garbage that should not be included as recyclables.

Zhao Shuhui understands this very well. Although thick and clean white plastic bags are released for recycling, she and her companions are not interested in it. "It doesn't weigh much, and a large bag only costs one yuan. Who would want it?" At several waste collection sites visited by AI Finance and Economics, bosses said that plastic bags are rarely recycled, and most of the plastic products received are plastic bottles.

It is also difficult to ban the waste of express delivery waste from the source. At a YTO express delivery station in Wangjing, Beijing, courier Zhang Feng was putting tape on a package the size of a microwave oven. Originally, it was enough to seal the outside of the bag, three or four at most, but he went around more than a dozen times. The light green The outside of the woven bag is covered with khaki tape.

"The company doesn't care about packaging (materials). It only requires that it be wrapped well, otherwise it will be held responsible. Usually it will be wrapped a few times more." Zhang Feng said. Sure enough, the large and small packages piled up on the site, whether they were in cartons or plastic bags, were all covered by khaki or transparent tape.

This is not uncommon. In addition to express delivery outlets, some businesses also over-package in order to reduce losses caused by collisions of goods, resulting in a large amount of waste of cartons, foam paper, and tape. Sometimes after packaging, the goods are The volume has more than doubled.

Some people have proposed the use of green packaging, which has also been specifically listed in the guidance of the State Post Bureau, but promotion also faces high costs.

Niu Zhijing, head of Cainiao Green Action, once told the media that the price of tape-free cartons and environmentally friendly express bags is about 1.5 times to 2 times that of ordinary cartons and express bags, and the price of degradable tape is that of ordinary tape 5 times. Estimates show that if all the 83 billion domestic parcels were packaged in green packaging, the added cost would be in the tens of billions of yuan.

This makes the express company quite difficult. Due to price wars and the relationship between supply and demand, the single-ticket revenue of YTO, STO, and Yunda has been hovering in the early 2 yuan, and increasing packaging costs will make things worse. Zhu Yi, president of ZTO Express Research Institute, said euphemistically, "Low-cost green consumables are very important to promote green packaging. After all, the profits in the express delivery industry are already very thin."

But the express garbage belt The problems of resource waste and environmental pollution in the future have become urgent. In December 2020, the General Office of the State Council forwarded the "Opinions on Accelerating the Green Transformation of Express Packaging" from eight ministries and commissions, proposing that by 2022, the proportion of e-commerce express items that will no longer be repackaged will reach 85%. The application scale of recyclable express packaging reaches 7 million units, and we strive to achieve the goal of no longer repackaging e-commerce express packages by 2025, with the recyclable scale reaching 10 million units.

In order to solve the garbage problem, government departments frequently mobilize. In November 2020, Beijing issued the strictest "plastic restriction order", focusing on plastic reduction efforts in e-commerce express delivery, catering, takeout platforms, wholesale and retail and other industries, reducing the use of non-degradable disposable plastic products, and actively promoting plastic waste Sorting and recycling of materials.

There are also actions at the corporate level. Cainiao launched the "Return Box Plan", JD.com launched the recyclable express box "Qingliu Box", and Suning launched the recyclable exclusive express box. In addition, express delivery companies such as SF Express, ZTO, YTO, and BEST have also set up recycling bins, but the implementation process has been unsatisfactory.

The person in charge of an express delivery company once revealed that the carton recycling program "has not achieved the expected purpose." The reason is that neither users nor couriers have strong pain points in recycling. The ideal plan is for users to open the cartons as soon as they receive the courier, and then hand the carton to the courier to take back for recycling. But many times, users are not at home and cannot sign for receipt on the spot, so they cannot open the express delivery. For couriers, time is money. They are busy delivering goods and have no time to wait for recycling.

Even if there are fixed recycling outlets, most users will not drag cartons to the recycling outlets. More often than not, they will be thrown directly into the trash can downstairs.

Currently, express delivery companies including SF Express, ZTO, STO, Yunda, YTO, etc. are enjoying the dividends brought by the rapid development of the industry. Several of them have market values ??of over 10 billion, especially SF Express. As high as more than 400 billion yuan. To a certain extent, they are already a big company and should assume more social responsibilities in reducing express delivery waste. But obviously, they have not done enough. Many people are not aware of the recycling plan they have launched.

In view of cost considerations, the waste and pollution problems caused by express delivery garbage seem to be inexplicably borne by the waste collection station personnel at the bottom of the city.

As the sun sets, the last touch of dark yellow disappears in the shadow of the trees in the distance. Li Tietie and his son are still waiting for the last late customer on the roadside. After a while, the old man who collected waste in a small three-wheeler came. The three of them worked together to unload the cartons and bundles of building materials, and talked in dialect about the recent cold weather and the harvest. After accepting a stack of receipts, the old man drove away in his car. The father and son also jumped into the car and disappeared into the deep blue night under the warm yellow light.

(At the request of the characters, Qian Jianguo, Li Titie, Zhao Shuhui and Zhang Feng are all pseudonyms in the article)