The carbon emissions of ordering takeaway for a week need to be offset by a tree for a year?

Recently, at a seminar, some experts proposed that the reuse model is an environmental protection scheme that is widely recognized by countries around the world, among which recycling lunch boxes have been practiced in reality. (March 6, Guangzhou Daily New Flower City client)

Express delivery and takeaway have long become an indispensable part of daily life, but the rapidly increasing plastic waste is "flooding" cities. According to reports, from 2015 to 2020, the consumption of plastic packaging such as takeaway lunch boxes in China soared from 57,000 tons to 574,000 tons. In addition, due to the huge amount of takeaway packaging waste, there is still a lack of precise statistics. However, the environmental impact of takeaway packaging waste can be quantified, and "the carbon emissions of a week's takeaway need a tree to offset for a year" is by no means alarmist, not to mention other solid waste pollution and resource consumption.

In the face of plastic pollution, recirculating lunch boxes seem to be a viable solution. There have been many pioneers who have proposed this law before, but the problems are also very prominent - high requirements for lunch boxes, high consumer use costs, and lack of sufficient policy support. Therefore, most of the current application scenarios of circular lunch boxes are still limited to colleges and universities, and students are more willing to accept the concept of environmental protection, and the environment is relatively closed, so reverse logistics is more convenient to achieve. But then again, despite the challenges, the prospect of circular lunch boxes is worth looking forward to – in the pilot of universities, lunch boxes can offset the environmental impact of five types of indicators, including carbon emissions, for every seven cycles of lunch boxes.

To achieve "plastic reduction", it is necessary to "pick up plastic". In the long run, speeding up the improvement of the takeaway waste recycling system is still the way to solve plastic pollution. In this regard, policy support, enterprise implementation, and consumers need to increase their willingness to recycle to help plastic reduction achieve practical results.

Original title: Circular lunch boxes may wish to be implemented