China is attempting to get its moribund environmental packaging legislation back on track, Stuart Hoggard attempts to understand the forces at work
With China’s Excessive Packaging Law stuck in bureaucratic limbo the Chinese government has put the environment and packaging reduction back on the agenda with a set of new instructions to the bureaucracy to fast-track legislation curbing excessive packaging, ‘in order for the country to progress and become a resource-conserving and environmentally-friendly society’.In a State Council notice issued to all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, just three days before the peak holiday period (Chinese New Year) on January 23, the Chinese equivalent of the Cabinet Office instructed all government departments to draft and implement legislation to manage excessive packaging.
Singled out by the State Council were luxury items and gift products popular during festive periods, such as Chinese New Year. Specifically named were moon-cakes, tea, alcohol, cosmetics and health supplements. The notice warned that excessive packaging not only wastes resources and pollutes the environment, but also adds to the overall product cost ‘damaging the interests of consumers’.
In particular close attention must be given to the development of sound standards, regulations and policies to prohibit the production and sale of excessively packaged goods.
Sustainable packaging plan
This latest salvo from Beijing comes after a long silence in which environmental issues have taken a back seat. Back in November 2007 the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council issued the bureaucracy with a Master Plan for the future of the packaging sector (The Method for Administration of Recycling Packaging Materials). This Master Plan laid the foundations of a road-map of laws, ordinances and mandatory standards to reduce China’s dependence of imported foreign resources, regulate materials and production methods, build a recycling infrastructure similar to the Japanese system and introduce environmental taxation.
Based on extended producer responsibility (producer pays) the Master Plan defined the responsibilities of Government ministries and departments in the creation of new legislation, and set guidelines on materials and processes to be banned and/or restricted while leaving specific details in the hands of the bureaucracy.
In January 2008, the Cabinet took the lead issuing a State Council Notice restricting the sale of plastic shopping bags, and banned production and sale of bags below 25microns, and imposed restrictions on all others at retail.
Again, with the exception of the outright ban on ultra thin bags, the notice was vague on detail, with instructions to the national and local authorities to develop specific regulations. In less than a month a series of ordinances were issued requiring producers to conform to new technical standards, retailers to charge for plastic bags, print prices and recycling symbols on the bags, keep separate accounts and pay taxes on bag sales. Penalties for infringement included seizure of stock and production equipment, fines and even closure of the business.
This was followed in March 2008, by Mandatory Technical Standards governing toluene and alcohol in gravure and offset inks, a water pollution act setting penalties for dumping chemical and solid waste into the waterways at the actual cost of clean-up times a factor of five or ten, depending on the seriousness of the offence.
In April 2008, a simple bureaucratic reclassification of waste import regulations effectively banned the import of waste plastic and some paper grades. In a statement a Ministry of Environment (MOE) official said ‘never again will China accept foreign garbage’. This effectively quashed the European recycled plastic export market.
However patriotic the MOE’s posturing, the Master Plan makes the intention clear, to establish an uncontaminated recycling stream. Choking off imports of assorted plastic waste from entering the country is the first step in controlling the process. The Master Plan also calls for the banning of coloured PET and selective waste separation and disposal by householders, these measures have yet to surface.
A May 2008 amendment to the Criminal Law lifted the corporate veil for environmental crimes, aiming to hold company senior management personally liable. In the absence of a Food Safety Law (recently passed) this amendment was used to prosecute the chairwoman of Samu Milk over the melamine-contaminated (polluted) milk scandal that left six children dead and more than 300,000 ill.
Excessive packaging
In July 2007 a highly controversial draft of an Excessive Packaging Ordinance; ‘Limit Excessive Packaging of Goods Regulations’ supported by two standards ‘Restrictions on Excessive Food and Cosmetic Packaging’, were issued by China’s inspection agency General Administration of Quality Supervision (AQSIQ).
This contained specific instructions on the number of permitted primary and secondary packaging layers and limited the cost of packaging to no more than 15 per cent of the product sale value. Also included were formulae for the calculation of the allowable head-space (porosity) and calculations on product/package cost ratios.
However, at a public legislative hearing held last September by AQSIQ, businesses, associations, consumers, and industry representatives widely slammed the law as being impractical, with the general comment that the one-size-fits-all regulations were too wide and that AQSIQ was ‘promulgating administrative regulations from the perspective of the force of law’ rather than basing them on practical technical realities. Little has been heard of the Excessive Packaging Law since September, and the inspection agency became embroiled in the melamine-tainted milk scandal which cost AQSIQ general director Li Chang Jiang his job.
While the pre Chinese New Year notice reviving the Ordinance gave no deadline, the State Council reiterated that the matter was very serious and issued a second notice on February 13 quite literally translated as “Regarding Serious Implementation of ‘Office of the State Council on the Management of Excessive Packaging Merchandise Notification’ Notice”. Unlike the first notice, this was jointly released by the State Council, AQSIQ, National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and the State Administration of Industry and Commerce and the Ministries of Public Works, Finance and Commerce – heavyweight support indeed.
It reaffirms the February commitment to ‘governing’ the packaging industry” and re-allocates responsibility for oversight from AQSIQ to the (NDRC), itself a powerful arm of the Chinese Cabinet.
While the content of these Cabinet notices appear identical to the Excessive Packaging Ordinance, the inclusion of NDRC directly in the chain of command suggests a hands-on Cabinet approach to kick-start the process.
Using the language of a bygone era, the State Council puts it bluntly: “All units must overcome the shackles of traditional ideas, and focus on technological innovation, enhance production process, resolutely eliminate backward technology, introduce new technology and equipment, and improve materials utilisation and packaging quality.”
