The social cost of cosmopolitan packaging and coping strategies

The Party Central Committee is vigorously advocating the construction of a conservation-minded society. When this year's dog year of the New Year, it shows the prosperity of the people everywhere, but at the same time, the luxury packaging has greatly "flourished." According to surveys and analysis of relevant experts, although excessive luxury packaging has “beautiful” things, it cannot “beautiful” the society and will inevitably cause five major harms to society.

The wind of luxury packaging is getting more and more so the society bears a huge cost

At the beginning of reform and opening up, when good products did not pay attention to packaging, they once called for "the emperor's daughter also married." But nowadays, the "ugly lady" packs a beautiful "outer garment" and also impersonates the "emperor's daughter" and gets married to marry abroad. Over-luxury packaging makes the people more and more annoyed and painful.

Although overwhelming calls for curbing over-luxury packaging have been heard in recent years, the excessively luxurious packaging on the market has become even more bleak, and the luxury packaging of health products, cosmetics, sugar and alcoholic beverages and other commodities has been staggering. In the holiday market in Shenyang, the roast duck that sells for 98 yuan on weekdays is put into a gift box and the price is changed to 209 yuan; the four types of seafood, such as scallops, shark's fin, sea cucumber, and abalone, are packed in four small plastic bags of duck size. The outer packaging used a rosewood-colored wooden box. The price was 2,888 yuan; a bottle of unknown white wine was placed in a cloisonne bottle with a silver edge, and a gold-plated imitation terracotta chariot was placed next to it. After the gift box was packaged, the price of this bottle of liquor would have reached 3,000 yuan. Nowadays, over-luxury packaging has become a hot spot for Liaoning Provincial People's Congress representatives and CPPCC members.

According to a survey conducted by the Liaoning Province Packaging and Printing Industry Chamber of Commerce, last year, the packaging of alcoholic and mooncake products in Liaoning market accounted for 40% of the cost, and the packaging cost of cosmetics was higher than 40%. The packaging cost of medicines, especially health products, was also high. At 20%.

According to the analysis of this phenomenon by relevant experts in Liaoning, the problem is that society has to bear huge costs for excessive luxury packaging. First, excessive packaging consumes excessive resources and restricts sustainable economic development. However, producers do not pay for it. This part of production costs is externalized. Second, consumers abandon large amounts of packaging waste and aggravate environmental pollution. This part of the cost of consumption is also externalized. These luxury packaging wastes are not only a waste of waste, but also are causing serious pollution to the environment. They cannot be calculated by numbers.

Too much deluxe packaging will inevitably lead to five consequences

According to experts' research and analysis, there are two special groups that are eager for luxury packaging.

First, the high-income group after the reform and opening up. In this kind of consumption, they must find glory in their identities and faces. There are also many people who are eager to take advantage of the “pull relations” and take bribes and accept bribes.

The second is public fund group buying. Such groups pay with public funds and squander their money in comparison.

The wind of luxury packaging driven by these two types of consumer clusters will inevitably cause five major hazards to society:

First of all, it is easy to create the illusion that social wealth is extremely abundant. Over the past 20 years of reform and opening up, China’s economic strength, comprehensive national strength, and the living standards of the people in both urban and rural areas have indeed been greatly improved. However, it is far from being rich enough to spend money on the face. China’s per capita GDP has just passed the 1,000-dollar “subsistence line,” and there are a large number of poor families who cannot afford to learn and can not afford to get sick. With the money spent on luxury packaging, how many laid-off workers can be re-employed and how much Poor children come to the desk?

Second, excessive luxury packaging has caused huge waste of national resources. In addition, China's current recycling and recycling of resources, lack of advanced technology, social management level is quite backward. As a result, these luxury "clothes" are useless to life and have no secondary use value. They can only be thrown into landfill pits together with garbage.

Third, it disrupts the normal rules of market operations and generates profits for businesses. Under the supervision of the Liaoning Provincial National People’s Congress and consumers, during the Mid-Autumn Festival last year, Liaoning organized experts to conduct unannounced visits to the moon cake market in Shenyang. As a result, it was found that a box of mooncakes with the same quantity and quality had different packaging and had 68 yuan, 168 Yuan, 868 yuan such a big spread.

Fourth, many companies do not hesitate to engage in fake luxury packaging to reduce costs. It is understood that the vast majority of the manufacturers engaged in packaging in Liaoning are small in scale and use low-density fiberboard and adhesives, which contain a large amount of free formaldehyde. This poses a serious hazard to the human respiratory system.

Fifth, excessive luxury packaging is not harmonious with building a harmonious society.

Stopping the wind of luxury packaging is the key to management

Excessive packaging of commodities undoubtedly aggravated the burden of consumption, caused unnecessary waste, was incompatible with China's resources and environmental conditions, and was not sustainable.

Although the wind of luxury packaging has become more and more prosperous, it is not unstoppable. The key is management. Experts suggest:

The first is to actively promote the shift of consumer culture toward green consumption.

The change in packaging culture and consumer culture is of great significance in curbing excessive luxury packaging. Since the end of the last century, major changes have taken place in the concept of international packaging, setting off a wave of green packaging. Further requirements for packaging to maximize the conservation of resources, the formation of the minimum amount of waste and minimal environmental pollution.

China's packaging culture has apparently lags behind, and it is still at the stage of pursuing exquisite industrialization. The green packaging culture has yet to be established step by step. China should vigorously promote a new culture of green packaging as a decent atmosphere. All product packaging design should promote the shift of consumer culture to green consumption.

Second, to curb over-luxury packaging, relevant departments should formulate relevant packaging regulations as soon as possible.

Experts pointed out that in order to curb excessive packaging, many countries have specifically formulated relevant packaging regulations, such as the German "Circular Economy Law", Denmark's "Container Packaging Recycling Law," and Japan's "New Packaging Guidelines." In addition, the United States, Canada, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Brazil and other countries and regions have established similar packaging regulations. The European Union has also issued the "Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive."

Although China has already established the "Cleaner Production Promotion Law" in 2002 and the "Solid Waste Pollution Prevention and Control Law" implemented on April 1, 2005, it has made the following: "Enterprises should rationally package their products." "Preventing excessive packaging from causing environmental pollution" and other regulations, but there is still no special packaging regulations.

Third, relevant laws and regulations must make a quantitative definition of excessive luxury packaging.

Japan’s “New Packaging Guidelines” clearly stipulates that packaging empty space must not exceed 20% of the packaging volume; packaging costs must not exceed 15% of the product sales price; packaging should correctly display the value of the product. This quantitative definition is worth our country's reference.

China should adopt a mandatory means as soon as possible, with the principle of “beautiful and practical, and at the same time, rigorous economization”. It should accurately stipulate different taxation standards for different proportions of costs and packaging, and formulate packaging ratio standards that exceed the value of packaging in kind, according to different standards. The higher the level of collection of taxes and fees, the higher the cost of packaging, the higher the tax. Some tax standards can exceed the actual cost of luxury packaging 10 times, or even 100 times, so that excessive luxury packaging in the face of tax leverage, and prohibitive.

The fourth is the external cost of excessive luxury packaging, and the relevant government departments can also internalize them by collecting “green taxes”. Whether manufacturers or consumers, such as insisting on the pursuit of excessive luxury packaging, must pay a special tax on the external costs. Severe penalties for overly luxurious packaging can be severely punished or mandatory for public welfare.

Experts pointed out that if excessive luxury packaging is effectively contained, it will not only save China's limited resources, but also the level of social civilization will be improved in a subtle manner.

Source: China Food Industry Network