On March 8, the Science & Technology Department of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of PRC publicly solicited comments on the No.1 amendment to the Mandatory National Standard of "Requirements of Limiting Excessive Packaging for Food and Cosmetics"(draft for comments). The deadline was April 6, 2022.

China Biodiversity Conversation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) has noticed the waste of resources and environmental pollution caused by excessive packaging of moon cakes a few years ago, and has done many market research about it. On September 14, 2021, the Commission on Legal Affairs of CBCGDF held a webinar on “Excessive packaging of moon cakes - Taking the public interest litigation case of excessive packaging of Shanghai xinghualou as an example", in which experts from relevant fields such as government departments, industry associations, colleges and universities shared their opinions in the discussion and gained a deeper understanding of the excessive packaging accordingly.

For this No.1 amendment, CBCGDF put forward six suggestions after careful study as follows.

1.  The packaging for food and its processed products such as moon cakes and zongzi (sticky rice dumplings) shall not exceed two layers, and the packaging for other products shall not exceed three layers.

2.  The price shall be no more than 20% of the sales price of goods. When the price category is involved in the standard, the use of the word "goods" instead of "products" can make the wording of this standard consistent.

3.  The packaging of moon cakes and zongzi (sticky rice dumplings) shall not use precious metals, mahogany and other wooden materials in order to encourage the use of recyclable and degradable materials.

4.   In view of the severity of plastic pollution, the use of products with unnecessary plastic film shall be strictly controlled, so the film with an outer thickness of less than 0.03 mm shall be included in the package.

5.  The space coefficient of "tea and related products", "bee products", "health products” and "other pastries" shall be reduced to compress the volume.

6.  It is suggested to add an index "net weight ratio". The net weight of solid food shall be no less than 40% of the total weight of products.

The Science & Technology Department of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of PRC has replied in writing that they received the feedback. Meanwhile CBCGDF would be invited for the subsequent review meeting on "Requirements of Limiting Excessive Packaging for Food and Cosmetics".

CBCGDF will continue to pay close attention to its progress and follow up.

Original Chinese Article: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/VRqb2zUyZifi8zE87qtQUg

Translator: Sara

Editor: Samantha

Contact: v10@cbcgdf.org; +8617319454776

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