Plastic Life, Trapped in Excessive Packaging

Foodthink Says

Once again, it’s the 618 Shopping Festival. After the thrill of buying, buying, buying and unboxing, unboxing, unboxing — have you ever stopped to wonder where all the plastic packaging we’ve swept out the door actually ends up?

“Eat Well” is about more than just putting good food on our plates; it is also about safeguarding our planet’s ecology, so that we can move closer to true physical and mental well-being. This edition of “Eat Something Good” has collected many readers’ complaints about excessive plastic packaging on food, along with tips and tricks for recycling or cutting back on plastic use.

Some people say that waste incineration plants have recently been running short of waste to burn — is it even worth worrying about plastic waste anymore? In fact, the shortage of waste for incineration is not because waste has decreased, but because China’s incineration capacity has surged, leaving plants short of material to burn.

Moreover, whether plastic packaging is binned and sent to a landfill or incinerator, or scattered across mountains and seas before finding its way back to our dinner tables through the food chain, it inflicts enormous harm on both people and nature. Ultimately, the solution must begin at the source: reducing our plastic consumption.

For a long time now, the “use-and-dispose” lifestyle has plunged humanity and plastic into a “toxic relationship we cannot quit”. Our daily lives are saturated with excessive plastic packaging that clings to food and proliferates out of control. Confronted with layer upon layer of plastic wrapped around food deliveries, vegetables, and pastries, people feel disgust or anger — but more often than not, they feel a profound bewilderment and helplessness: “This excess plastic is not what I wanted, so why does it still exist?”

Plastic Delivery, Plastic Life

Food delivery has become a staple of our daily lives. Yet China’s nearly 100 million food delivery orders a day are generating an enormous volume of plastic packaging waste. Moreover, research has shown that delivery containers holding hot food above 65 °C can release microplastics and perfluorinated compounds (PFAS), causing endothelial damage to blood vessels. The severity of the plastic packaging problem in the food delivery sector may far exceed what we imagine.

@卷宝 (Female, 24, Tianjin): My closest daily encounter with plastic is when I’m opening a food delivery. First I struggle to untie the plastic bag, then I pry the lid off the food container, and then I tear open the packaging on the disposable cutlery. When I scoop up soup with a disposable plastic spoon, I can even smell the plastic. When I’m heading out, if I see another pile of delivery packaging stacked at the door, a wave of disgust washes over me — I even feel that my life really is as “plastic” as all this.

🟠Delivery waste piled up at doorways has become an extremely common sight in urban life. Image source: Foodthink

@叹息的复读机 (Male, 37, Daqing): I clearly specified “no cutlery” when I placed my order, yet they still send some. Please actually pay attention to what customers are asking for! Stop blindly sending low-quality disposable cutlery wrapped in plastic bags.

@山竹 (Female, 39, Kaifeng): Food delivery packaging is even more convoluted than getting takeaway from a regular restaurant. The food is placed in a plastic container, wrapped in cling film to prevent any soup from spilling, and then encased in yet another plastic bag on the outside.

@lmt (Male, 29): For breakfast I like ordering egg-stuffed pancakes from a certain shop. They’re absolutely delicious, but every time I see that the egg-stuffed pancakes, which could just as easily go straight into a paper bag, are also slipped into a plastic bag, it feels incredibly off, as if someone were wearing a coat under a T-shirt. I understand — slipping on a plastic bag makes customers feel the food hasn’t been soiled during delivery. But why not just seal it up properly in a paper bag?

@北极熊 (Female, 36, Jinhua): The disposable gloves and little sauce containers that come with food deliveries are absolutely over the top.

Plastic Waste Behind the Shopping Frenzy

The 618 Shopping Festival is upon us again. After all the buying, buying, buying, receiving, receiving, receiving, and unboxing, unboxing, unboxing, all that’s left is throwing, throwing, throwing. Most of the packaging — clear tape, air pillows, plastic bags — ends up in a landfill. The primary material in much of this packaging is polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which can take over a century to decompose.

@Yanan (Female, 42, Beijing): To prevent breakage during transit, the boxes for cooking oil or glass-bottled products bought online are often stuffed with air columns. Perhaps sellers could reduce the number of air columns used.

@LTT (Female, 30, Beijing): When shopping on e-commerce platforms, long-distance shipping means there’s bound to be a lot of plastic packaging — bubble bags for shock absorption, clear tape, and so on. If we eat local, buy local, and cut back on transport, plastic packaging would naturally decrease as well.

@白日梦: I bought some strawberries from a livestream shop, and they just arrived. I peeled back the packaging — six layers, piled all over the floor. I get that strawberries are fragile and easy to bruise, but isn’t this a bit excessive? The strawberries themselves are delicious, but unwrapping all that packaging gave me an oddly strong sense of environmental guilt. I’m not buying strawberries that require small-parcel shipping online anymore.

Endless Matryoshka Gift Box Packaging

Mooncake, zongzi, and tea gift boxes suffer most from over-packaging. Novel packaging designs keep popping up, and sellers and consumers tacitly treat this “exquisite” packaging as a mark of premium quality and high value — no one wants to be the one to call the emperor’s new clothes.

@黄小猫 (Male, 30, Beijing): There’s a particularly good-tasting Gongju chrysanthemum tea. Each flower comes in three layers of packaging — a base box, a lid box, and a small individual plastic bag. The chrysanthemums sit one by one like specimens on display.

@花花 (Female, Xi’an): If you buy a mooncake gift box these days, you’ll find the packaging is like a Matryoshka: gift bag → mooncake gift box → plastic dividers inside the box → individual mooncake paper boxes → individual mooncake plastic wrapping → individual small plastic dividers for each mooncake. All that plastic packaging is bound to cause environmental pollution, and it keeps driving up the price of mooncakes.

@志超 (Male, 38, Beijing, initiator of the “Postman Slow Delivery” event): A mooncake comes in a big box. Inside the box there’s a smaller package, and inside that smaller package there’s a tray… Of course, it could equally be that the tray is inside the smaller package.

🟠 Nowadays, mooncake packaging keeps getting more elaborate and more expensive, while the mooncakes themselves keep getting less good to eat. Image source: AliExpress

@wxy: From April 2017 to November 2019, I worked at a food company. One year, I convinced the product manager to try reducing the packaging on a bestselling mooncake gift box, only for sales to suffer as a result. The day before Mid-Autumn Festival, we had no choice but to open up the outer packaging and sell the mooncakes individually. A large share of mooncake gift box purchases are made by companies for employee welfare and client appreciation, where there is a strong demand for a presentable exterior and a sense of “value” — even with a price discount, customers simply would not buy…

Cucumbers Trapped in Cling Film

The excessive plastic packaging of fresh produce has been escalating in recent years. Slotted into a plastic tray, sealed with cling film, slipped into a plastic bag — at many supermarkets and online fresh-food platforms, fruit, vegetables, and meat must be packaged this way, and consumers don’t even get the chance to refuse.

@Yawen (Female, 36, Beijing): On online vegetable-delivery platforms such as Hema and Dingdong, as well as some premium supermarkets, vegetables are often pre-packaged in plastic trays sealed with cling film, portioned out one by one. It may be for a better presentation, or to avoid weighing, or to reduce shrinkage from customers picking through. But considering the daily volume of goods flowing through these platforms, I can’t even fathom how much plastic waste that generates. These platforms are genuinely convenient sometimes, so it’s hard to walk away — I can only hope for more environmentally friendly packaging materials and smarter packaging design. For instance, the strawberries in the photo could surely have a simpler packaging design.

@山竹 (Female, 39, Kaifeng): When I go to the morning market to buy vegetables, I get a plastic bag for every single item. Every morning I carry home a heap of vegetables, meat, and eggs, all in plastic bags.

@LTT (Female, 30, Beijing): Fruit is definitely the hardest hit, and it varies by type. Strawberries are certainly layered with packaging — plastic film, plastic trays, foam paper, every non-recyclable material gets used. Apples, pears, watermelons, and durians are comparatively “tough.” Citrus fruits used to be mostly unsealed, but now they’re gradually becoming one fruit wrapped in one plastic bag. Here’s a “Cui Mi kumquat” I spotted in a supermarket in Beijing. A tiny little one, but each one seems to be sealed in its own shell like a “dragon pearl.” A glance around and it’s a whole ocean of shimmering plastic. Later I spotted “Cui Mi kumquat” at another supermarket, this time in different packaging — wrapped in a golden, foil-like paper. Still just a tiny little one. Placed in a gift box, they look like coffee capsules, like qing gan pu-erh, like any high-end item you’d expect in a gift box — you just can’t guess that it’s a single kumquat.

@志超 (Male, 38, Beijing, initiator of the “Postman Slow Delivery” event): When buying vegetables in a supermarket, the price label has to be stuck on the bag, which means every vegetable needs its own plastic bag. And then there’s the Cui Mi kumquat I see in supermarkets — individually wrapped in tiny bags, then sealed in plastic film inside a plastic tray.

@吴晓歪 (Female, 44, Xiamen, author of the <em>Zero-Waste Event Guide</em>): I now cook at home two-thirds of the time and eat out one-third, but I mainly rely on Sam’s Club and Pupu’s dark stores, so inevitably there will be some plastic bags, plastic packaging for fresh produce, and insulated bags and ice packs for frozen items.

@紫菜蛋花汤 (Female): When shopping in a supermarket, I’m always puzzled as to why perfectly good cucumbers have to go in a plastic tray and then be wrapped in cling film? You might not see this at a wet market, but virtually every large fresh-food supermarket does it. What’s the reasoning behind this?

@北极熊 (Female, 36, Jinhua): Occasionally when I don’t have time to shop, I use Dingdong for online grocery delivery. Every vegetable, meat, or seafood item comes with a lot of plastic packaging. Some of it is necessary, some isn’t. I feel there should be better biodegradable solutions, such as using paper-based materials for sorting or packaging.

@吴晓歪 (Female, 44, Xiamen, author of the <em>Zero-Waste Event Guide</em>): I just received a bunch of broccoli from Sam’s Club today — a set of three, each one in its own “single room,” and the plastic trays are ridiculously thick! As a former employee of a chain fresh-food supermarket, I can understand that retailers need to minimise shrinkage, and some plastic tray packaging is indeed unavoidable. But Sam’s Club’s trays are generally far too thick.

Snacks Dressed in Layer After Layer

I can’t quite remember when it started, but somehow individually portioned snacks — the kind that look beautifully packaged and are designed to be opened and eaten at a moment’s notice — have become all the rage. Do consumers genuinely enjoy such elaborate packaging? Or is it merely a pathological trend born out of snack brands trying to differentiate themselves in a crowded market?

@志超 (Male, 38, Beijing, initiator of the “Postman Slow Delivery” event): I never would have imagined that one day, when I opened a bag of instant noodles, the noodle cake inside would be sealed in yet another layer of plastic film.

@北极熊 (Female, 36, Jinhua): Snack packaging is all in individual single-serving portions — there’s just too much plastic. And then there are the seasoning packets for things like luosifen (river snail rice noodles), which are absurdly numerous. It’s to the point where I don’t dare buy these kinds of foods anymore, yet making them myself seems impossible because I can’t source all those tiny quantities of separate ingredients.

@kly: Individually wrapped portions are very common. If they’re for foods like coffee and tea, where there’s a genuine need for small, portable packets, I can see the logic. But why do jujubes like these need to be grouped a few together and then individually packaged?

Do You Have “Plastic Packaging Hoarding Syndrome”?

Some people, particularly many older ones, like to save up plastic packaging for later reuse. But since things pile up faster than they get used, many joke that this amounts to having “plastic packaging hoarding syndrome.” Still, compared to just tossing plastic in the bin and letting it end up in a landfill or incinerator — turning a blind eye to the potential consequences — which is really the pathological one?

@芫茜 (Female, 35, Dongguan): In an ideal world, keep what can still be used, process what can be recycled, and see if there’s another use for what can’t. The result, though, is that my rooms at home are now full of plastic waste…

@芋泥波波 (Female, 31, Zhengzhou): I remember as a kid often hearing my mum and aunties gripe about my grandma’s “quirk” of hoarding plastic bags. Every time I saw those crumpled-up bundles of bags being swept out the door, I secretly felt a little thrill. And now I run my own little household and have unknowingly hoarded a lot too, always thinking I’ll need them later. But in the end, these plastic bags always seem to get thrown out when I’m feeling frazzled.

@北极熊 (Female, 36, Jinhua): I collect plastic bags. I use mineral water bottles to make enzyme or wash them out and sort them before dropping them off at the recycling station. I collect cardboard boxes as well, so that people who scrap for a living can take them for recycling more easily.

@Stella (Female): Just finished folding up a bread bag. I used to bring my own bread bags to the bakery, but I’ve noticed most toast comes with its own packaging, so sometimes I opt for the unwrapped bread instead.

The day before yesterday, a colleague at the office went out to Haidilao. I washed out and collected the fruit boxes they’d bought to go — really clean boxes, and PP5, no less. The takeaway boxes we used in the office before were also PP5 — I washed those out too. Plus plastic boxes from fruit or cakes I’ve bought — I wash them all and set them aside. I really can’t bear to throw them out.

At my old office I’d saved up loads of these, and in the end my colleagues said it’d be a nightmare to carry them all when moving, so we just dumped them in the bin. I hope the cleaner at least takes them to sell as scrap. My family can’t understand why I collect all these boxes either. I really can’t bear to throw them out, but when I go out to shop, so much stuff already comes in boxes or bags, so I can only try to choose things that don’t come in packaging.

@雨轩 (Female, Beijing): I reuse what I can — like when sending parcels or picking up deliveries. If online orders or products arrive over-packaged, I give feedback to the seller and suggest they cut back on the packaging. But a lot of the time I just end up throwing it all away.

@Yawen (Female, 36, Beijing): I collect the outer bags from takeaways and all sorts of plastic bags for reuse — usually as bin liners, so I don’t need to buy separate bin bags. I use reusable plastic containers instead of single-use plastic bags (for instance, when I buy meat and need to portion it into single servings for freezing). The produce bags supermarkets use to portion vegetables are fairly sturdy, so I collect those too and use them as kitchen waste bags. In short, in situations where it’s genuinely hard to avoid plastic, I try to make the most of what I have and get as many uses out of each item as possible.

Discover Plastic Recycling Points Near You

For an individual, it is genuinely hard to achieve full reuse of the plastic packaging that piles up at home. But if we channel surplus packaging through centralised recycling points and redirect it to larger-scale commercial or public uses, we might be able to boost the efficiency of recycling. Do you have any such recycling points nearby? Feel free to share in the comments.

@Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market (Beijing): At the farmers’ market we continuously collect clean, sturdy, reusable second-hand packaging — shopping bags, cardboard boxes, styrofoam boxes, and the like — as well as egg cartons and fruit covers sold by market farmers. If you have spare yarn or knitted items at home, you are welcome to bring them to the market; we will donate them to the Yarn Revival Group, which knits warm clothing for children in the Tibet region.

Image source: Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market

@wxy: My previous role involved packaging design and procurement for our company’s own-brand products. Back then, some loyal customers reached out to say they had accumulated a whole pile of egg cartons and plastic boxes for fruit and vegetables — all washed and stacked neatly — and they would love for us to take them back for reuse. But in line with food safety regulations and our company’s quality management requirements, I had to politely decline. Over time, I came to feel that driving plastic reduction from the corporate side was simply too difficult. Every department, every role has its own KPIs, and those priorities far outweigh anything to do with cutting plastic. So I tried advocating from the consumer side, starting with reducing the use of large plastic bags.

At first, I set up a shared shopping bag box in the checkout area of the store, where customers could drop off bags they no longer needed at home, and anyone who had forgotten their bag could grab one for free. Some people voiced concerns about using other people’s bags, after all they would be in contact with food. For those voices, we simply let them be — if you don’t want to use one, you don’t have to. Later, I collaborated with a factory where one of our customers worked, and we made some shopping bags from stroller offcuts, sold at zero profit and also redeemable with loyalty points.

🟠Shopping bags donated by customers, available to take for free. Image source: wxy

@黄小猫 (Male, 30, Beijing): Some post offices collect parcel packaging so they can provide it free of charge to people who come to send parcels.

@志超 (Male, 38, Beijing, initiator of the “Postman Slow Delivery” event): I started an event called ““Postman Slow Delivery” event, built through the co-creation of cycling enthusiasts, environmental advocates, and green businesses, to create a zero-carbon transport recycling platform. Simply put, it is about using cycling to keep second-hand bags in circulation, supplying them to businesses that need them.

Join Free U Nature

Scan the QR code on the poster below to join Free U Nature and become a postman rider. As deliveries get faster and faster and plastic waste piles up like mountains, let’s use bicycle wheels and the circulation of old items to fight the climate crisis together.

Through the Postman Slow Delivery event, we have gathered the following businesses that are currently accepting used bags — sharing them here:

➊Jishi (Lixiang Branch): No. N20, Lixiang Commercial Street, Fenghuanghui (Daily, 10:00–22:00)

➋Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market @ Shangri-La Hotel: Ground level, No. 29, Zizhuyuan Road, Zizhuqiao, West Third Ring (Every Saturday, 9:00–12:00)

➌Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market @ Lecheng Centre: No. 22 East Third Ring Middle Road (Every Sunday, 10:00–13:00)

➍Guanshe: B1, South Zone, Guanshe at Liangmaqiao (Every Saturday/Sunday, 12:00–18:00)

➎Shantao, Beijing Xueyan Building Branch: Room 103, Block B, Xueyan Building, No. 33 Shuangqing Road, Haidian (10:00–19:00)

➏New Guomao Hotel: Public areas / Lian Gongchang reception / Aimer Sport (Daily, 9:00–21:00)

➐Three Rabbits Second-hand Recycling Shop: Floor 2, Building 19, Chaoyangmen Beixiao Street (Daily, 10:00–21:00)

➑Xingye Mini Shop: Xinzhuang Village, Changping (Daily, 8:00–20:00)

➒Baixing Convenience: Xiayuan Village, Changping (Daily, 8:00–20:00)

@吴晓歪 (Female, 44, Xiamen, author of the Zero-Waste Event Guide): In my city, every community waste-sorting station has a large metal-mesh “styrofoam recycling bin.” Collected items are brought to a nearby waste-sorting education centre, where a dedicated machine compresses them into blocks before they are sent to a recycling factory. Clean plastic packaging can be placed in the smart recycling bins for paid recycling, while dirty food containers, plastic film, courier packaging bags, and the like go in the recyclable waste bin and are sent to a low-value recyclables sorting centre.

@三个毛: I keep some takeaway containers and plastic boxes from fruit and vegetables bought at the supermarket to use as storage boxes, or I place them under flower pots to catch water — they are just the right size. I recently also learned to use a screwdriver to poke holes in bubble tea cups and turn them into flower pots. When you buy furniture they give you a bunch of screwdrivers, so you just heat one over a flame and poke the holes and that’s all it takes.

@刘lifang (Shanghai): Shantao Charity Supermarket used to hold an event: exchange bags for books, plastic bags not included. I swapped some non-woven bags for several books.

A Few Clever Tips for Cutting Back on Plastic

Recycling is only one solution to dealing with plastic waste. Given that plastic is inherently resistant to breaking down, even disposal through landfilling or incineration can lead to groundwater contamination, the release of greenhouse gases, and toxic emissions. We still need to reduce our use of plastic at the root.

@LTT (Female, 30, Beijing): Bring your own insulated bottle or tumbler; bring a lunch box and pack leftovers; use cloth bags for shopping; cut back on takeaway.

@北极熊 (Female, 36, Jinhua): Use a reusable bag when shopping at the market; order less takeaway; try to buy foods in glass jars or cardboard packaging.

@芫茜 (Female, 35, Dongguan): Cook at home; bring my own food container, cutlery, and water bottle when going out; bring bags for shopping; cut back on snacks; make the most of what I already have and avoid unnecessary purchases. Sometimes, when I travel to another city, I specifically pack bottles and jars to shop at bulk goods stores.

@北京有机农夫市集 (Beijing): Our market community shop has opened a “bulk section”— everyone is welcome to bring your own containers and shop in bulk! On a scorching summer day, why not pick up some red beans, mung beans, dried lily bulbs, dried white fungus, and yellow rock sugar to make a refreshing, cooling sweet soup.

@雨轩 (Female, Beijing): Try to eat at home as much as possible, shop less, and bring your own packaging when buying things out—say, a glass lunch box. Skip single-use cutlery when eating out, and add a note saying “no packaging needed” when ordering takeaway.

It is also worth stepping up as a watchdog: report businesses that break the rules. For example, if a restaurant is handing out single-use cutlery in violation of the regulations, call the comprehensive law enforcement office for the street where it is located—they will be there to inspect and correct the issue very quickly. We should put together a list of common violations along with the corresponding complaint hotlines—single-use cutlery issues, public pollution, private pollution—and share it widely online so that more people can exercise their right to oversight.

@Yawen (Female, 36, Beijing): Use silicone bowl lids instead of cling film; bring my own bags to the supermarket and skip the paid plastic bags; try to avoid single-use items like disposable face wipes and underwear.

@摆脱塑缚 (Guangzhou): If you are curious about ways to break free from a life of single-use plastic, come along to this fun, plastic-reducing “Eco Reuse Day” market! You can try out reusable coffee cups, professional sports gear repair, casual pop-in shopping, second-hand swaps, and many other green living ideas. Together with the various stallholders, discover a sustainable lifestyle that works for you.

Thank you to all the readers who shared their tips. We will select five of you to receive a gift and invite one more to join us for lunch at the Foodthink office. If you have your own gripes about excessive plastic packaging, feel free to leave a comment below. And please do pass along any of the recycling or plastic-reduction tips mentioned in this article to your friends—let us all break free from our unhealthy dependence on plastic and head together towards “Zero-Waste Planet.”

Planner: Kai Rui

Editor: Yu Yang