- Email: [email protected]
Considerable environmental impact of the rapid development of China's express delivery industry
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 126 (2017) 174–176
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Resources, Conservation & Recycling journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resconrec
Perspective
Considerable environmental impact of the rapid development of China's express delivery industry
MARK
⁎
Weiguo Fana,b, Ming Xuc, Xiaobin Donga,b, , Hejie Weia,b a b c
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2125, United States
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Express delivery industry Express packaging materials Environmental impact
The environmental and social problems related to global production and consumption are matters of concern. One component of this is how the express delivery industry is continuing to grow and develop with the rapid development of e-commerce. However, the indirect environmental impacts of the express delivery industry have not been seriously considered. Based on statistics of the types and quantities of packaging materials consumed by China’s express delivery industry in 2015, this paper estimated the environmental load of express packaging materials consumed in the processes of production and distribution of express delivery in China. The results show that the rapid development of the express delivery industry will lead to a large consumption of express packaging materials. Even when only considering the processes of production and distribution of express packaging materials, this industry will still become a serious burden on China's environment. This study provides a scientific reference for the environmental impact assessment of China's express delivery industry and may promote the healthy and sustainable development of the express delivery industry.
As an important social and economic logistics system, the express industry has been served the public’s daily life with the rapid economic development (Chen and Lin, 2017). Moreover, express industry has become the economic and commercial ties between countries, and it is essential for country's economic development. To cater to the needs of the community, the express delivery industry quickly became an emerging modern service industry. According to statistics from China, in 2016, the express delivery industry did more than 30 billion in business, marking 10 billion in growth compared to 2015 and accounting for 43% of the total business in the global express industry. Taking the Chinese population of 1.37 billion into consideration, in 2016, China's used 22 packages for express delivery per capita is an increase of nearly 7 packages per capita since 2015. Moreover, the express delivery industry created approximately 1.20 million jobs and the total annual delivery distance was 8.70 billion kilometers, which is equivalent to 21.71 million laps around the earth (IFENG.com, 2016). Although the processes of production and consumption in the global economy provide convenience to consumers, due to a lack of appropriate theoretical guidance, these processes have caused many environmental and social problems. According to statistics, the global production process is responsible for 4.70 trillion dollars in environmental costs each year and approximately 6.40 billion tons of CO2
⁎
emissions (Davis et al., 2011). At the same time, as an intermediate link between production and consumption, the express industry will lead to many social problems. In China, for example, a lack of appropriate standards will result in the express delivery industry not meeting its commitment. In addition, one of the non-negligible factors is the potential impact of the production and transportation of packages for express delivery on the environment. Recently, a report showed that in 2015, the Chinese express delivery industry fulfilled a total of 20.70 billion express delivery orders and consumed approximately 9.92 billion package boxes, 8.27 billion plastic bags, 3.10 billion woven bags, 1.11 billion envelopes and 16.69 billion meters of tape (Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, 2015). The report also noted that uncontrolled energy consumption, failure to reduce the amount of designed materials and poor packaging are the main problems in the production of packages for express delivery. Although in December 2009, series standards of express package materials B/T 16606.1–16606.3 began to implement, owing to lack of legal supervision, the phenomenon of excessive packaging is still in common, and the waste of package materials are serious (Feng et al., 2016). This indicates that in terms of quantity, the current consumption of Chinese packaging is considerable; in terms of production conditions, China's current packaging production is lacking effective supervision, and
Corresponding author at: State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China. E-mail address: [email protected] (X. Dong).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.07.041 Received 10 July 2017; Received in revised form 24 July 2017; Accepted 27 July 2017 0921-3449/ © 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 126 (2017) 174–176
W. Fan et al.
distribution of express packaging materials are considered, the emissions of environmental pollutants are still very large. In 2015 alone, the CO2 emissions generated by the processes of production and distribution of express packaging materials were 1.17E + 6.0t, of which packaging boxes, plastic bags made of PO, plastic bags made of PE, woven bags, envelopes and tape accounted for 5.24E + 05t, 1.57E + 05t, 8.49E + 04t, 3.13E + 05t, 9.68E + 03 t and 8.29E + 04t, respectively. Of the 6 types of packaging materials, packaging boxes have the largest CO2 emissions, which are directly related to the processes of their production and consumption. In addition, according to data released by the World Bank, the total amount of CO2 emissions generated by the express delivery industry in China in 2015 was roughly equivalent to the CO2 emissions of the Republic of Sierra Leone in 2013 (1.19 E + 6.0t) (World Bank, 2017a,b). The resulting methane emissions correspond to the full year of Guam's methane emissions in 2013 (World Bank, 2017a,b). Moreover, as an important air pollution indicator, controlling PM2.5 and PM10 emissions are urgent problems to solve. According to the results of this paper, the PM2.5 and PM10 emissions associated with the processes of production and distribution of express packaging materials were 2.74E + 04 kg and 3.97E + 04 kg in 2015. In addition, according to the research of Takahashi et al. on deaths caused by consumption-based PM2.5 emissions, China's total PM2.5 emissions in 2008 were 4,849,000 tons due to domestic consumption, and the number of deaths directly caused by PM2.5 emissions was 111,000 (Takahashi et al., 2014). In this article, we calculate the particulate matter formation in the time horizon of 100 years based on the method of ReCiPe in Gabi 6.0. The results show that DALY data of the particulate matter formation is 175.80. Moreover, it is equivalent to 6.76E + 05 kg PM10 Equiv. The above figures are only taken into account for the processes of production and distribution of express packaging materials, and they would be even greater if environmental emissions from the intermediate turnover processes were taken into account. Currently, booming China's e-commerce, highlighting the rapid development of express delivery industry, and online shopping, has greatly stimulated consumption. With the rapid growth of the express delivery industry, it is inevitable that the rapid increase of the distance in express distribution and the demand for express packaging materials will indirectly affect China's environmental emissions. However, not much attention has been paid to this issue. As the recycling rate of China’s express packaging materials is less than 20% (Liu and Liu
extensive production is more likely to produce excessive environmental waste; To this end, this study quantifies the resource consumption and calculates pollution emissions from the production and distribution processes of express packaging materials (package boxes, plastic bags, woven bags, envelopes and tape). This study aims to provide a scientific reference for the rapid development of China's express delivery industry and the assessment of its environmental impact. Packages for express delivery have different sizes, specifications, and weights. To obtain those data, this research relies on website information to obtain the main types and weights of the express packaging materials mentioned above that were dominant in the Chinese market in 2015. In addition, based on a random survey of 200 purchase records from each kind of packaging material and the proportion of the consumed types, this paper estimates the total quantities of each express package material in China in 2015. Specific results are seen in supplementary materials. Finally, in the current process of express delivery services in China, almost all transport is provided by electric tricycles, which carry out distributions daily. Base on the workload of the courier and power consumption of electric tricycles one day and considering the total delivery distance of 8.70 billion km and the proportion of China's power generation in 2015, this paper calculates the consumption of thermal power, hydroelectric power, nuclear power and photovoltaic power associated with these deliveries; the results are a thermal power (73.10%) consumption of 19,352,763 kw h, hydroelectric power (19.90%) consumption of 5,268,399 kw h, wind power (3.40%) consumption of 900,129 kw h, nuclear power (3.00%) consumption of 794,231 kw h, and photovoltaic power (0.60%) consumption of 158,846 kw h. This paper evaluates the environmental loads of express packaging materials in the process of the production and distribution based on Gabi 6.0 (Thinkstep, 2016). In the process of ground distributions, almost all transport is provided by electric tricycles. Thus the main consideration in the process of ground distribution is the consumption of electricity. Based on the proportion of China's power generation in 2015, and taken the weight as a distribution standard, this article distributed different environmental emissions to the express packaging materials. The functional unit is the total express delivery service and the processes of ground distributions in 2015 (the transfer processes in the middle are excluded). The results of the main emissions are shown in Table 1. As seen in Table 1, if only the processes of production and ground Table 1 Main emissions of the packaging materials Units: kg. Heading
Category
Total
Packaging boxes
Plastic bags(PO)
Plastic bags(PE)
Woven bags
Envelopes
Tape
Heavy metals to air
Total Copper Iron Lead Manganese Nickel Zinc
6.67E + 02 1.52E + 01 9.73E + 01 1.11E + 02 1.15E + 02 5.50E + 01 6.38E + 01
2.47E + 02 4.58E + 00 3.10E + 01 6.30E + 01 5.63E + 01 8.09E + 00 2.16E + 01
1.18E + 02 3.06E + 00 1.84E + 01 1.31E + 01 1.57E + 01 1.41E + 01 1.21E + 01
5.76E + 01 1.41E + 00 8.52E + 00 7.53E + 00 9.27E + 00 3.40E + 00 6.77E + 00
2.38E + 02 6.07E + 00 3.82E + 01 2.60E + 01 3.15E + 01 2.93E + 01 2.27E + 01
6.27E + 00 1.16E-01 1.10E + 00 9.26E-01 1.63E + 00 7.82E-02 5.53E-01
5.46E-01 2.48E-03 1.79E-02 1.13E-01 3.37E-02 2.97E-03 1.88E-01
Inorganic emissions to air
Total CO2 Fluoride NO2 NO2 SO2
4.13E + 10 1.17E + 09 1.85E + 02 1.97E + 05 9.16E + 03 1.21E + 06
3.65E + 10 5.24E + 08 1.32E + 02 2.52E + 02 7.47E + 03 2.51E + 05
1.30E + 09 1.57E + 08 1.60E + 01 2.76E + 01 3.57E + 02 1.76E + 05
6.91E + 08 8.49E + 07 7.74E + 00 2.30E + 01 3.98E + 02 7.18E + 04
2.59E + 09 3.13E + 08 2.77E + 01 4.93E + 01 6.32E + 02 3.62E + 05
1.05E + 08 9.68E + 06 8.34E-01 1.79E + 01 3.03E + 02 3.76E + 04
8.62E + 07 8.29E + 07 1.07E-02 1.97E + 05 2.39E-01 3.15E + 05
Organic emissions to air
Total Methane
4.70E + 06 3.74E + 06
6.14E + 05 4.63E + 05
9.14E + 05 7.57E + 05
4.60E + 05 3.74E + 05
1.98E + 06 1.58E + 06
5.36E + 04 2.36E + 04
6.81E + 05 5.46E + 05
Particles to air
Total PM10 PM2.5
1.55E + 05 3.97E + 04 2.74E + 04
4.76E + 04 2.40E + 01 1.24E + 04
1.39E + 04 2.41E + 00 3.28E + 03
1.03E + 04 1.48E + 00 3.00E + 03
3.45E + 04 5.09E + 00 6.52E + 03
8.48E + 03 2.97E + 00 2.22E + 03
3.98E + 04 3.96E + 04 9.57E + 00
Pesticides to air Radioactive emissions to air Other emissions to air
Total Total Total
3.31E + 01 1.80E-05 5.44E + 09
3.01E + 01 1.06E-05 1.75E + 09
8.52E-01 1.96E-06 1.04E + 09
6.06E-01 1.09E-06 5.52E + 08
1.48E + 00 3.53E-06 2.08E + 09
9.45E-02 8.46E-07 2.23E + 07
2.66E-05 1.13E-09 1.07E + 06
175
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 126 (2017) 174–176
W. Fan et al.
Acknowledgements
2017), this will stimulate the express production industry to produce more packaging materials to meet the trend of parcel growth. Owing to the different standards within the packaging production industry and the different levels of quality, environmental pollution due to the packaging process will be highly exacerbated. In addition, with the extension of delivery times and distances, which salesmen increased as quickly as possible for the sake of competition, traffic safety issues have emerged. The rapid development of the express delivery industry not only speeds up the rhythm of people's lives but also has an impact on traditional stores, along with the compression of the shopping chain. Problems with emerging online shopping products are also testing consumers’ confidence and managers’ ability. To improve the efficiency of the use of express packaging materials, measures such as controlling the source of the production of express packaging materials, promoting emerging technologies and establishing a unified standard production model which will thus decrease the degree of damage to the environment caused by the packaging materials. Further studies of the express delivery industry in China should focus on industrial standardization construction, delivery packing materials greening and warehouse with integration. At the same time, improving the recycling rate of express packaging materials by the legal and technical means is also important. We hope that the development of the express delivery industry can reduce its environmental emissions while simultaneously continuing to promote China's economic development and sustain the health and stability of society in the future.
This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (41671531, 41271549), Key Project of the National Societal Science Foundation of China (15ZDB163) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2014KJJCB33). Appendix A. Supplementary data Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.07.041. References Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, 2015. Green Packaging Development Status and Trend Report of China Express Delivery Field. . http://news.bigc.edu.cn/xykb/ 60449.htm. Chen, T., Lin, C.W., 2017. A fuzzy collaboration system for ubiquitous loading/unloading space recommendation in the logistics industry. Rob. Comput. Integr. Manuf. 45, 86–98. Davis, S.J., Peters, G.P., Caldeira, K., 2011. The supply chain of CO2 emissions. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 108, 18554–18559. Feng, M.K., Cao, G.R., Cheng, L., Fu, Y.B., 2016. Status and greenization of express packaging. J. Beijing Inst. Graph. Commun. 24, 22–25. IFENG.com, 2016. China's Express Business Volume Exceeded 30 Billion. http://news. ifeng. com/a/20161221/50450420_0.shtml. Liu, J.Q., Liu, Y., 2017. Research on construction of express packaging waste recycling industry in China and its impacts on environment. Environ. Sci. Manage. 42, 18–21. Takahashi, K., Nansai, K., Tohno, S., Nishizawa, M., Kurokawa, J., Ohara, T., 2014. Production-based emissions: consumption-based emissions and consumption-based health impacts of PM2.5 carbonaceous aerosols in Asia. Atmos. Environ. 97, 406–415. Thinkstep, A.G., 2016. GaBi 6 Software and Databases. http://www.gabi-software.com/ china/index/. World Bank, 2017a. CO. http://data.worldbank.org.cn/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.KT? year_high_desc=false. World Bank, 2017b. Methane Emissions (thousands of Tons CO. http://data.worldbank. org.cn/indicator/EN.ATM.METH.KT.CE?year_high_desc=false.
Author contributions statement All authors contributed to this work by collaboration. Weiguo Fan is the main author of this manuscript; Hejie Wei collected related data; Xiaobin Dong and Ming Xu provided some useful suggestions in the conception of the paper. Competing financial interests The authors declare no competing financial interests.
176
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Resources, Conservation & Recycling journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resconrec
Perspective
Considerable environmental impact of the rapid development of China's express delivery industry
MARK
⁎
Weiguo Fana,b, Ming Xuc, Xiaobin Donga,b, , Hejie Weia,b a b c
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2125, United States
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Express delivery industry Express packaging materials Environmental impact
The environmental and social problems related to global production and consumption are matters of concern. One component of this is how the express delivery industry is continuing to grow and develop with the rapid development of e-commerce. However, the indirect environmental impacts of the express delivery industry have not been seriously considered. Based on statistics of the types and quantities of packaging materials consumed by China’s express delivery industry in 2015, this paper estimated the environmental load of express packaging materials consumed in the processes of production and distribution of express delivery in China. The results show that the rapid development of the express delivery industry will lead to a large consumption of express packaging materials. Even when only considering the processes of production and distribution of express packaging materials, this industry will still become a serious burden on China's environment. This study provides a scientific reference for the environmental impact assessment of China's express delivery industry and may promote the healthy and sustainable development of the express delivery industry.
As an important social and economic logistics system, the express industry has been served the public’s daily life with the rapid economic development (Chen and Lin, 2017). Moreover, express industry has become the economic and commercial ties between countries, and it is essential for country's economic development. To cater to the needs of the community, the express delivery industry quickly became an emerging modern service industry. According to statistics from China, in 2016, the express delivery industry did more than 30 billion in business, marking 10 billion in growth compared to 2015 and accounting for 43% of the total business in the global express industry. Taking the Chinese population of 1.37 billion into consideration, in 2016, China's used 22 packages for express delivery per capita is an increase of nearly 7 packages per capita since 2015. Moreover, the express delivery industry created approximately 1.20 million jobs and the total annual delivery distance was 8.70 billion kilometers, which is equivalent to 21.71 million laps around the earth (IFENG.com, 2016). Although the processes of production and consumption in the global economy provide convenience to consumers, due to a lack of appropriate theoretical guidance, these processes have caused many environmental and social problems. According to statistics, the global production process is responsible for 4.70 trillion dollars in environmental costs each year and approximately 6.40 billion tons of CO2
⁎
emissions (Davis et al., 2011). At the same time, as an intermediate link between production and consumption, the express industry will lead to many social problems. In China, for example, a lack of appropriate standards will result in the express delivery industry not meeting its commitment. In addition, one of the non-negligible factors is the potential impact of the production and transportation of packages for express delivery on the environment. Recently, a report showed that in 2015, the Chinese express delivery industry fulfilled a total of 20.70 billion express delivery orders and consumed approximately 9.92 billion package boxes, 8.27 billion plastic bags, 3.10 billion woven bags, 1.11 billion envelopes and 16.69 billion meters of tape (Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, 2015). The report also noted that uncontrolled energy consumption, failure to reduce the amount of designed materials and poor packaging are the main problems in the production of packages for express delivery. Although in December 2009, series standards of express package materials B/T 16606.1–16606.3 began to implement, owing to lack of legal supervision, the phenomenon of excessive packaging is still in common, and the waste of package materials are serious (Feng et al., 2016). This indicates that in terms of quantity, the current consumption of Chinese packaging is considerable; in terms of production conditions, China's current packaging production is lacking effective supervision, and
Corresponding author at: State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China. E-mail address: [email protected] (X. Dong).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.07.041 Received 10 July 2017; Received in revised form 24 July 2017; Accepted 27 July 2017 0921-3449/ © 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 126 (2017) 174–176
W. Fan et al.
distribution of express packaging materials are considered, the emissions of environmental pollutants are still very large. In 2015 alone, the CO2 emissions generated by the processes of production and distribution of express packaging materials were 1.17E + 6.0t, of which packaging boxes, plastic bags made of PO, plastic bags made of PE, woven bags, envelopes and tape accounted for 5.24E + 05t, 1.57E + 05t, 8.49E + 04t, 3.13E + 05t, 9.68E + 03 t and 8.29E + 04t, respectively. Of the 6 types of packaging materials, packaging boxes have the largest CO2 emissions, which are directly related to the processes of their production and consumption. In addition, according to data released by the World Bank, the total amount of CO2 emissions generated by the express delivery industry in China in 2015 was roughly equivalent to the CO2 emissions of the Republic of Sierra Leone in 2013 (1.19 E + 6.0t) (World Bank, 2017a,b). The resulting methane emissions correspond to the full year of Guam's methane emissions in 2013 (World Bank, 2017a,b). Moreover, as an important air pollution indicator, controlling PM2.5 and PM10 emissions are urgent problems to solve. According to the results of this paper, the PM2.5 and PM10 emissions associated with the processes of production and distribution of express packaging materials were 2.74E + 04 kg and 3.97E + 04 kg in 2015. In addition, according to the research of Takahashi et al. on deaths caused by consumption-based PM2.5 emissions, China's total PM2.5 emissions in 2008 were 4,849,000 tons due to domestic consumption, and the number of deaths directly caused by PM2.5 emissions was 111,000 (Takahashi et al., 2014). In this article, we calculate the particulate matter formation in the time horizon of 100 years based on the method of ReCiPe in Gabi 6.0. The results show that DALY data of the particulate matter formation is 175.80. Moreover, it is equivalent to 6.76E + 05 kg PM10 Equiv. The above figures are only taken into account for the processes of production and distribution of express packaging materials, and they would be even greater if environmental emissions from the intermediate turnover processes were taken into account. Currently, booming China's e-commerce, highlighting the rapid development of express delivery industry, and online shopping, has greatly stimulated consumption. With the rapid growth of the express delivery industry, it is inevitable that the rapid increase of the distance in express distribution and the demand for express packaging materials will indirectly affect China's environmental emissions. However, not much attention has been paid to this issue. As the recycling rate of China’s express packaging materials is less than 20% (Liu and Liu
extensive production is more likely to produce excessive environmental waste; To this end, this study quantifies the resource consumption and calculates pollution emissions from the production and distribution processes of express packaging materials (package boxes, plastic bags, woven bags, envelopes and tape). This study aims to provide a scientific reference for the rapid development of China's express delivery industry and the assessment of its environmental impact. Packages for express delivery have different sizes, specifications, and weights. To obtain those data, this research relies on website information to obtain the main types and weights of the express packaging materials mentioned above that were dominant in the Chinese market in 2015. In addition, based on a random survey of 200 purchase records from each kind of packaging material and the proportion of the consumed types, this paper estimates the total quantities of each express package material in China in 2015. Specific results are seen in supplementary materials. Finally, in the current process of express delivery services in China, almost all transport is provided by electric tricycles, which carry out distributions daily. Base on the workload of the courier and power consumption of electric tricycles one day and considering the total delivery distance of 8.70 billion km and the proportion of China's power generation in 2015, this paper calculates the consumption of thermal power, hydroelectric power, nuclear power and photovoltaic power associated with these deliveries; the results are a thermal power (73.10%) consumption of 19,352,763 kw h, hydroelectric power (19.90%) consumption of 5,268,399 kw h, wind power (3.40%) consumption of 900,129 kw h, nuclear power (3.00%) consumption of 794,231 kw h, and photovoltaic power (0.60%) consumption of 158,846 kw h. This paper evaluates the environmental loads of express packaging materials in the process of the production and distribution based on Gabi 6.0 (Thinkstep, 2016). In the process of ground distributions, almost all transport is provided by electric tricycles. Thus the main consideration in the process of ground distribution is the consumption of electricity. Based on the proportion of China's power generation in 2015, and taken the weight as a distribution standard, this article distributed different environmental emissions to the express packaging materials. The functional unit is the total express delivery service and the processes of ground distributions in 2015 (the transfer processes in the middle are excluded). The results of the main emissions are shown in Table 1. As seen in Table 1, if only the processes of production and ground Table 1 Main emissions of the packaging materials Units: kg. Heading
Category
Total
Packaging boxes
Plastic bags(PO)
Plastic bags(PE)
Woven bags
Envelopes
Tape
Heavy metals to air
Total Copper Iron Lead Manganese Nickel Zinc
6.67E + 02 1.52E + 01 9.73E + 01 1.11E + 02 1.15E + 02 5.50E + 01 6.38E + 01
2.47E + 02 4.58E + 00 3.10E + 01 6.30E + 01 5.63E + 01 8.09E + 00 2.16E + 01
1.18E + 02 3.06E + 00 1.84E + 01 1.31E + 01 1.57E + 01 1.41E + 01 1.21E + 01
5.76E + 01 1.41E + 00 8.52E + 00 7.53E + 00 9.27E + 00 3.40E + 00 6.77E + 00
2.38E + 02 6.07E + 00 3.82E + 01 2.60E + 01 3.15E + 01 2.93E + 01 2.27E + 01
6.27E + 00 1.16E-01 1.10E + 00 9.26E-01 1.63E + 00 7.82E-02 5.53E-01
5.46E-01 2.48E-03 1.79E-02 1.13E-01 3.37E-02 2.97E-03 1.88E-01
Inorganic emissions to air
Total CO2 Fluoride NO2 NO2 SO2
4.13E + 10 1.17E + 09 1.85E + 02 1.97E + 05 9.16E + 03 1.21E + 06
3.65E + 10 5.24E + 08 1.32E + 02 2.52E + 02 7.47E + 03 2.51E + 05
1.30E + 09 1.57E + 08 1.60E + 01 2.76E + 01 3.57E + 02 1.76E + 05
6.91E + 08 8.49E + 07 7.74E + 00 2.30E + 01 3.98E + 02 7.18E + 04
2.59E + 09 3.13E + 08 2.77E + 01 4.93E + 01 6.32E + 02 3.62E + 05
1.05E + 08 9.68E + 06 8.34E-01 1.79E + 01 3.03E + 02 3.76E + 04
8.62E + 07 8.29E + 07 1.07E-02 1.97E + 05 2.39E-01 3.15E + 05
Organic emissions to air
Total Methane
4.70E + 06 3.74E + 06
6.14E + 05 4.63E + 05
9.14E + 05 7.57E + 05
4.60E + 05 3.74E + 05
1.98E + 06 1.58E + 06
5.36E + 04 2.36E + 04
6.81E + 05 5.46E + 05
Particles to air
Total PM10 PM2.5
1.55E + 05 3.97E + 04 2.74E + 04
4.76E + 04 2.40E + 01 1.24E + 04
1.39E + 04 2.41E + 00 3.28E + 03
1.03E + 04 1.48E + 00 3.00E + 03
3.45E + 04 5.09E + 00 6.52E + 03
8.48E + 03 2.97E + 00 2.22E + 03
3.98E + 04 3.96E + 04 9.57E + 00
Pesticides to air Radioactive emissions to air Other emissions to air
Total Total Total
3.31E + 01 1.80E-05 5.44E + 09
3.01E + 01 1.06E-05 1.75E + 09
8.52E-01 1.96E-06 1.04E + 09
6.06E-01 1.09E-06 5.52E + 08
1.48E + 00 3.53E-06 2.08E + 09
9.45E-02 8.46E-07 2.23E + 07
2.66E-05 1.13E-09 1.07E + 06
175
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 126 (2017) 174–176
W. Fan et al.
Acknowledgements
2017), this will stimulate the express production industry to produce more packaging materials to meet the trend of parcel growth. Owing to the different standards within the packaging production industry and the different levels of quality, environmental pollution due to the packaging process will be highly exacerbated. In addition, with the extension of delivery times and distances, which salesmen increased as quickly as possible for the sake of competition, traffic safety issues have emerged. The rapid development of the express delivery industry not only speeds up the rhythm of people's lives but also has an impact on traditional stores, along with the compression of the shopping chain. Problems with emerging online shopping products are also testing consumers’ confidence and managers’ ability. To improve the efficiency of the use of express packaging materials, measures such as controlling the source of the production of express packaging materials, promoting emerging technologies and establishing a unified standard production model which will thus decrease the degree of damage to the environment caused by the packaging materials. Further studies of the express delivery industry in China should focus on industrial standardization construction, delivery packing materials greening and warehouse with integration. At the same time, improving the recycling rate of express packaging materials by the legal and technical means is also important. We hope that the development of the express delivery industry can reduce its environmental emissions while simultaneously continuing to promote China's economic development and sustain the health and stability of society in the future.
This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (41671531, 41271549), Key Project of the National Societal Science Foundation of China (15ZDB163) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2014KJJCB33). Appendix A. Supplementary data Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.07.041. References Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, 2015. Green Packaging Development Status and Trend Report of China Express Delivery Field. . http://news.bigc.edu.cn/xykb/ 60449.htm. Chen, T., Lin, C.W., 2017. A fuzzy collaboration system for ubiquitous loading/unloading space recommendation in the logistics industry. Rob. Comput. Integr. Manuf. 45, 86–98. Davis, S.J., Peters, G.P., Caldeira, K., 2011. The supply chain of CO2 emissions. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 108, 18554–18559. Feng, M.K., Cao, G.R., Cheng, L., Fu, Y.B., 2016. Status and greenization of express packaging. J. Beijing Inst. Graph. Commun. 24, 22–25. IFENG.com, 2016. China's Express Business Volume Exceeded 30 Billion. http://news. ifeng. com/a/20161221/50450420_0.shtml. Liu, J.Q., Liu, Y., 2017. Research on construction of express packaging waste recycling industry in China and its impacts on environment. Environ. Sci. Manage. 42, 18–21. Takahashi, K., Nansai, K., Tohno, S., Nishizawa, M., Kurokawa, J., Ohara, T., 2014. Production-based emissions: consumption-based emissions and consumption-based health impacts of PM2.5 carbonaceous aerosols in Asia. Atmos. Environ. 97, 406–415. Thinkstep, A.G., 2016. GaBi 6 Software and Databases. http://www.gabi-software.com/ china/index/. World Bank, 2017a. CO. http://data.worldbank.org.cn/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.KT? year_high_desc=false. World Bank, 2017b. Methane Emissions (thousands of Tons CO. http://data.worldbank. org.cn/indicator/EN.ATM.METH.KT.CE?year_high_desc=false.
Author contributions statement All authors contributed to this work by collaboration. Weiguo Fan is the main author of this manuscript; Hejie Wei collected related data; Xiaobin Dong and Ming Xu provided some useful suggestions in the conception of the paper. Competing financial interests The authors declare no competing financial interests.
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