Packaging / Advertising & Office

On September 2, the Standards and Technology Department of the State Administration for Market Regulation held a press conference on the mandatory national standards of GB 23350-2021 "Restrictions on Excessive Packaging of Products Requirement for Food and Cosmetics". This standard has been approved and issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation (National Standards Committee) and will be implemented on September 1, 2023.

Food and cosmetics are closely related to people’s daily life. At present, some foods and cosmetics still have excessive packaging, unenvironmental protection, and non-saving conditions. They are manifested by too many packaging layers, excessive voids, and high costs, which exceed the cost of the packaging itself. basic skills. According to research, my country’s packaging waste accounts for about 30% to 40% of urban domestic waste. Most of these packaging wastes are generated by excessive packaging, which wastes resources and energy and increases the burden on consumers. Packaging waste has caused pollution to the environment.

According to reports, in order to solve the problem of excessive packaging of food and cosmetics, the State Administration of Market Supervision (National Standards Committee), in conjunction with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments, organized relevant standardization technical committees and technical institutions to revise the 2009 version of the standard, formulate and issue new The national standard of "Restriction of excessive packaging of commodities and requirements for food and cosmetics". The new standard specifies requirements for packaging void ratio, packaging layers and packaging cost, as well as corresponding calculation, testing and determination methods. The specific contents include: standardizing the packaging requirements of 31 types of food and 16 types of cosmetics; greatly simplifying the determination method of excessive packaging of goods. Consumers only need to check the weight or volume of the goods themselves, and measure the volume of the outermost packaging. The calculation can preliminarily determine whether the product has excessive packaging; the requirements for the number of packaging layers are strictly limited. The food and processed products should not exceed 3 layers of packaging, and other foods and cosmetics should not exceed 4 layers of packaging. The new standards are conducive to guiding green production and consumption, and also conducive to effective supervision.

The new standard sets a two-year transition period. During this period, the work that food and cosmetics companies need to carry out mainly includes: First, carry out standard promotion and implementation training within the company, so that design, R&D and production personnel have a deeper understanding of the standard technical content; The packaging is designed for compliance, and production is put into use as soon as possible; the third is to speed up the consumption of inventory packaging and products that have entered the market to ensure that the products produced and sold after the implementation of the standards meet the new standards. After the two-year transition period, food and cosmetics that do not meet the new standards are not allowed to be reproduced and sold on the market.

Consumers can generally judge whether a product is over-packaged simply by "one look, two questions, and three calculations". "One look" means to see whether the outer packaging of the product is luxurious packaging and whether the packaging materials are expensive materials; "second question" means to ask the number of packaging layers to determine the grain and its quality without opening the packaging. Whether the packaging of processed products exceeds 3 layers, and whether other types of food and cosmetics packaging exceed 4 layers; the "three calculations" means measuring or estimating the volume of the outer packaging, and comparing it with the maximum allowable outer packaging volume to determine whether it exceeds the standard. As long as one of the three aspects does not meet the requirements, it can be preliminarily determined as not meeting the requirements of the standard.

In the next step, the General Administration of Market Supervision will work with relevant departments to fully, accurately and comprehensively implement the new development concept, combined with the new deployment and new requirements of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, freely disclose the full text of the standard, systematically carry out standard publicity and implementation training, and increase supervision and law enforcement. Intensify efforts to supervise and urge food and cosmetics manufacturing companies to start as soon as possible the diagnosis of compliance with standards and the design of product packaging compliance.