Everything you need to know about excessive packaging is right here.

During holidays and festivals, the store is filled with various Product Gift packaging is often lavish and exquisite, instantly capturing attention. Yet behind this beautiful exterior lies a troubling reality: excessive fluffiness combined with serious pollution and wastefulness.

The sponges and plastic foams used in packaging are difficult to degrade, leading to various pollution issues. According to statistics, currently over 1/3 It's packaging waste—packaging accounts for the volume of solid waste. 50%。

Some specially packaged products often come at prices several times higher than their normally packaged counterparts—sometimes even more. Yet, the quality of the goods remains exactly the same.

So, what is excessive packaging? And what about reasonable packaging? “ Difficult ” Where is it? And specifically, what regulations does our country have regarding excessive packaging? How can we conduct inspections and testing?

Xiaomin comes to popularize science

Q1 What is packaging? What is overpackaging?

Packaging: The collective term for containers, materials, and auxiliary items used according to specific technical methods to protect products during distribution, facilitate storage and transportation, and enhance sales.

Excessive packaging: Packaging that goes beyond the normal functional requirements, featuring an excessive number of layers, oversized voids, and higher-than-necessary costs.

Q2 We What laws, regulations, and standards exist to curb excessive packaging practices?

To curb excessive product packaging in China and prevent resource waste, the national government, along with several provinces and cities, has established relevant laws, regulations, and standards aimed at curbing overpackaging practices, as follows:

Circular Economy Promotion Law

Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste

Cleaner Production Promotion Law

Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Metrological Verification of Prepackaged Products

GB 23350-2009 Requirements for Restricting Excessive Product Packaging Food and cosmetics (Currently under revision) … )

GB/T 31268-2014 Limit excessive product packaging General Rules

There are also numerous other requirements, such as the "Several Provisions on Reducing Packaging Materials for Goods in Shanghai" and the "Nanjing Measures for Metrological Supervision and Administration," among others.

Q3 What are the limited requirements regarding excessive packaging?

Currently in China, excessive product packaging is mainly categorized into deceptive packaging and luxurious packaging.

Deceptive packaging: Excessive empty space inside the package, with significant discrepancies between the package's height/volume and that of the product.

Luxurious packaging: The cost of the packaging far exceeds that of the product itself.

To address excessive packaging, the focus is primarily on Three A limited edition to request.

Packaging void ratio: Detailed below.

Number of packaging layers: Excluding the number of layers for grain packaging ≤2 Outside the layer, the number of additional food packaging layers ≤3 Layer.

Packaging costs: The total sum of all packaging expenses, excluding initial packaging, should not exceed the product's selling price. 20%。

Q4 What is packaging void ratio?

Press GB 23350-2009 Requirements for Restricting Excessive Product Packaging Definitions of food and cosmetics, packaging void ratio interspace ratio The ratio of unnecessary space volume within the product's sales packaging to the total volume of the product's sales packaging.

Press GB 23350-2009 Requirements for limiting excessive packaging of food and cosmetics: The formula for calculating the packaging void ratio is as follows:

X —— Packaging Void Ratio

Vn—— The volume of the smallest circumscribed rectangular prism around the product's sales packaging

V0 —— The total volume of the product's original packaging

k —— Product Space Requirement Factor. In the standard, the value is set to 0.6

Annotation:

V0 Initial packaging refers to the packaging that comes into direct contact with the product. For products like instant cup noodles, where the packaging serves both as sales packaging and as the eating container itself, the outer paper cup is considered the initial packaging—and its void ratio is not factored in.

K : The role of packaging goes beyond simply facilitating storage and transportation or boosting sales—it plays a crucial part in protecting the product itself. This includes providing adequate space to cushion or secure items, creating what is known as the product’s essential packaging volume, which is GB 23350-2009 Requirements for Restricting Excessive Product Packaging Food and cosmetics are uniformly categorized according to 0.6 Let's calculate.

Q5 Which types of packaging are likely to result in excessive void space? What are some common product categories prone to overpackaging?

Unconventional products

The volume of the minimum circumscribed rectangular prism surrounding the sales packaging of irregularly shaped products is significantly larger than the actual volume of the sales package—for instance, for cone- or heart-shaped items, the volume is calculated by multiplying the area of the bottom outer rectangle by the height.

The package includes a free gift, but it’s not indicated on the packaging.

Gift items included in product packaging—such as certain edible accessories like spoons or wine glasses—will not be counted toward the overall volume of the product’s initial packaging if they are unrelated to opening the product itself and aren’t explicitly mentioned on the label. In other words, any items not clearly stated in the product’s sales packaging will be excluded from volume calculations. This policy aims to discourage the practice of attaching unrelated products to sales packaging, thereby preventing potential consumer confusion or misrepresentation.

Products that are particularly prone to excessive packaging include daily consumer goods closely tied to people's livelihoods—such as tea, alcoholic beverages, health foods, and cosmetics—as well as festive gifts like mooncakes and zongzi.

Q6 What are the penalties for producing and selling products with excessive packaging?

Currently, after the introduction of national and local regulations on excessive packaging, it has been found that the country does not have specific penalties for overpackaging—only the "Consumer Rights Protection Law of the People's Republic of China" applies. ( Presidential Decree No. 11 ) 》、《Standardization Law of the People's Republic of China ( Presidential Decree No. 78 ) 》According to relevant laws and regulations, violations of consumer rights or the production, sale, import of products, or provision of services that fail to meet mandatory standards must be pursued with strict legal accountability. Meanwhile, local authorities have relatively few explicit penalties in place for excessive packaging—take, for instance, the relevant regulations in Shanghai and Nanjing:

According to the "Several Provisions on Reducing Commodity Packaging in Shanghai," penalties for excessive packaging are as follows: If producers violate mandatory regulations regarding product packaging, the quality and technical supervision authorities shall order them to cease the illegal activity and rectify the situation within a specified timeframe. For sellers who offer products that contravene mandatory regulations, the authorities must mandate that they stop selling such items and require corrective action within a set deadline. Those who refuse to comply with the sales ban will face fines ranging from 2,000 yuan to 20,000 yuan; in cases of serious violations, the fines may increase to between 20,000 yuan and 50,000 yuan.

The "Nanjing City Measures for Metrological Supervision and Administration" stipulate: Any violation of these measures—specifically, producing, repackaging, or selling prepackaged goods that excessively use packaging beyond what is permitted—will result in an order from the metrology administrative authority to rectify the situation within a specified timeframe, along with a fine ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 yuan.