If you worry about all the waste generated by the annual rush of holiday shopping and gift giving, it’s nothing compared to the mountains of discarded packaging that comes from a single event in China. On Nov. 11 each year, the world’s biggest consumer market goes into overdrive as e-commerce giants like Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. and JD.com Inc. lure shoppers with huge bargains during the Singles’ Day bonanza. Alibaba reported almost 500 billion yuan ($76 billion) of sales this year, nearly four times U.S. Black Friday and Cyber Monday spending combined. On its Tmall platform, transactions reached a peak when 583,000 orders were made in a single second.
If you worry about all the waste generated by the annual rush of holiday shopping and gift giving, it’s nothing compared to the mountains of discarded packaging that comes from a single event in China.
On Nov. 11 each year, the world’s biggest consumer market goes into overdrive as e-commerce giants like Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. and JD.com Inc. lure shoppers with huge bargains during the Singles’ Day bonanza. Alibaba reported almost 500 billion yuan ($76 billion) of sales this year, nearly four times U.S. Black Friday and Cyber Monday spending combined. On its Tmall platform, transactions reached a peak when 583,000 orders were made in a single second.
China’s online shopping addiction is killing its green packaging drive
Online shopping in China generated 9.4 million tons of packaging in 2018, according to Greenpeace, which projects that the amount could rise to 41 million tons by 2025, about the same as all the waste produced by Japan in a year. December 21, 2020 10:47:18 am
Employees pack orders at Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao in Wuxi ahead of the Singles Day shopping extravaganza this year.
If you worry about all the waste generated by the annual rush of holiday shopping and gift giving, it’s nothing compared to the mountains of discarded packaging that comes from a single event in China.
China s online shopping addiction killing its green packaging drive businesstimes.com.sg - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from businesstimes.com.sg Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Zipper boxes
E-commerce companies are trying to stem the tide. For Singles’ Day this year, Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao designed recyclable corrugated cardboard boxes that don’t have to be sealed with plastic tape. The company offered the packaging to more than 500 sellers on Tmall, including brands like Nestle SA and Procter & Gamble Co. The so-called zipper boxes cost twice as much as their usual packaging, but sellers that opt to use them get extra promotion on the website. Cainiao says it used 190,000 plastic-free boxes and 3 million biodegradable bags to package Singles’ Day orders this year. While that’s a step forward, it’s just a fraction of the total increase in packaging this year.