The reporter observed that many chain catering businesses use beautifully printed non-woven bags for takeaway packaging. Most of these heavy packaging that were originally reusable are directly discarded after a meal.

Experts said that non-woven fabrics also contain plastic components. To eliminate excessive packaging, regulatory authorities and takeaway platforms need to work together. "For example, regulatory authorities stipulate that packaging cannot exceed two or three layers; takeaway platform companies can formulate platform rules to encourage merchants on the platform to reduce the use of disposable plastic packaging, etc."

As of December 2022, the number of takeaway users in my country has increased to 520 million.

The report shows that the number of orders on my country's mainstream Internet takeaway platforms has increased from 1.7 billion in 2015 to 17.12 billion in 2020, and the consumption (waste) of plastic has increased from 57,000 tons in 2015 to 574,000 tons in 2020, a tenfold increase in five years. There is no official statistics on how much takeaway plastic waste is recycled each year.

On June 20, the "Management Measures for the Use and Reporting of Disposable Plastic Products by Business Operators" jointly formulated by the Ministry of Commerce and the National Development and Reform Commission was officially implemented. Requirements↓

When catering operators provide take-out or take-out services, they should reasonably choose alternative products or compliant disposable degradable lunch box products;

Commodity retail establishment operators, e-commerce platforms (including take-out platforms) and take-out companies should report the use and recycling of disposable plastic products every six months.

"Plastic reduction" also requires "plastic collection"

Experts say that the current best way to effectively control the problem of take-out garbage plastic pollution is recycling and utilization.

At the beginning of this year, Shenzhen, Guangdong, launched a pilot project for the classification and recycling of take-out packaging waste in commercial office buildings.

In the pilot office building, a special trash can for "take-out packaging waste" was added-after employees poured the take-out food residues into the kitchen waste bin, the take-out packaging was collected separately and sent for recycling. Currently, 86 commercial office buildings in Shenzhen have been covered, and nearly 1,000 kilograms of take-out lunch boxes are recycled every day.

In July 2020, Xiamen, Fujian Province revised the "Guide Catalogue of Low-value Recyclables of Domestic Waste in Xiamen", stipulating that takeaway boxes are included in low-value recyclables and are no longer considered other garbage.

In the pilot community, the plastic lunch boxes, tableware and plastic bags in residents' takeaways will be collected and transported to the country's first low-value recyclables sorting center located in Haicang District, Xiamen. No manual sorting is required, and all enter the intelligent sorting platform. Since the sorting center officially reached full production in April this year, the low-value recyclables sorted every day can reach 50 tons.

In May this year, a takeaway platform released the "Green Packaging Solution for Catering Takeaways", providing takeaway packaging recyclable, degradable or reusable solutions for six major categories of merchants such as cakes, coffee, and light meals.

Experts said that the plan is only a recommended guidance plan, and relevant departments should coordinate different platforms to work together to urge platform takeaway merchants to speed up the upgrade of green packaging.

At the same time, consumer participation is particularly important to reduce takeaway plastic pollution. Do not throw away lunch box garbage at will during an outing, consciously sort garbage, try to dine in or choose "degradable lunch boxes" when dining, etc., all of which will contribute to protecting the environment.