By Trina Tan
Different arms of the Chinese government craft legislation and create and implement policies by closely following five-year plans decided by the very top levels of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). These five-year plans are not so much policy documents, but more like strategic roadmaps shaping China’s economic, social and geopolitical domain trajectory.
This year, China is concluding its 14th five-year plan (2021–2025) while also spending the next eight to 10 months preparing and finalising its 15th five-year plan (2026–2030). Anticipating what this newest plan contains amounts to a great deal of crystal ball gazing – but Chinese businesses will no doubt hope that it will enable them to reach the end of the decade in a strong position.
For the packaging industry and its end-use customer sectors, the 14th five-year plan comprised two high-level directional action plans: the National Circular Economy Plan and the National Plastic Pollution Action Plan. Jointly issued by NDRC and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), the aims of the action plans have been to cut the production and use of plastics, develop alternatives for plastics, and substantially reduce the amount of plastics waste in landfill and environmental leakage.
By the end of this year, China hopes to have achieved:
- The establishment of management and reporting systems for the production, circulation, consumption, recycling and disposal of plastics products, which would in turn greatly improve the efficiency of plastics waste collection and transfer.
- A 85 per cent recovery rate for agricultural films for recycling.
- A 30 per cent reduction in the consumption of non-biodegradable disposable plastics tableware used for food and beverage takeaways in cities at the prefecture level or above.
- The total prohibition of use of non-biodegradable plastics bags in shopping malls, supermarkets and local markets in urban areas.
- The total prohibition of use of non-biodegradable plastics bags, plastics tapes, disposable plastics woven bags etc, in postal express outlets nationwide.
- The scale of application of recyclable express packaging to reach 10 million units.
- An 800,000 tonne per day incineration treatment capacity for urban domestic waste nationwide.
- A significant reduction in the amount of plastics waste that is directly landfilled.
At the same time, China hopes to have effectively promoted the following:
- The use of environmentally friendly cloth bags, paper bags and other non-plastics products and biodegradable shopping bags.
- The use of biodegradable packaging film bags for fresh produce products.
- The use of bio-based products such as straw-coated lunchboxes and alternative products, including as biodegradable plastics bags that meet performance and food safety requirements for food and beverage takeaways.
- The use of agricultural biodegradable film in key mulching areas.
It is currently unclear what the 14th five-year plan report cards of the affected ministries and government agencies are going to look like when December 2025 comes around.
However, local industry developments, news releases by MEE and other ministries, agencies, and local news reports (from not-so-independent local news agencies) do seem to indicate that in the 15th five-year plan, the Chinese government will most likely continue on its course to promote alternatives to plastics packaging use in food and beverage takeaway and retail, and possibly expand to more end-use sectors, while enforcing bans where plastics packaging is prohibited and dishing out stricter penalties for violations.
Bamboo instead of plastics
One alternative to plastics that China has been touting and is expected to further invest in, is bamboo.
Because bamboo is considered a ‘rapidly replenishing, biodegradable biomass material that offers an effective solution to reduce plastics pollution’, in October 2023, the NDRC issued a three-year action plan to accelerate the replacement of fossil-based plastics with bamboo where possible, encouraging major bamboo-producing regions to expand production chains and supporting industries. This action plan has become known as the ‘bamboo instead of plastics’ initiative.
In November 2023, the Chinese government, in collaboration with the International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation, also launched the Global Action Plan for Bamboo as a Substitute for Plastic (2023–2030) – an initiative that calls upon international organisations, government departments, and research and educational institutions worldwide to collectively reduce plastics pollution.
“Bamboo, being one of the fastest-growing plants with exceptional carbon sequestration capabilities, is an ideal material for sustainable and green practices,” explained Chen Jie, director of the Bamboo Industry Development Centre under the forestry bureau of Anji County – which has more than 66,600 hectares of bamboo forests and major bamboo-related industries.
“It is estimated that utilising 100 million tonnes of bamboo to replace PVC products could potentially reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 600m/t,” he said.
Touting ‘bamboo instead of plastics’ helps China kill many birds with one stone – it encourages more cultivation, grows many supporting local industries and creates jobs particularly in poorer rural areas, and it is considered by those promoting it to be a more sustainable packaging alternative to fossil-based plastics.
However, others argue that bamboo has great limitations as a packaging material, making it applicable only to a small number of end-use sectors.
Thankfully, there is still much market demand potential for other biodegradable plastics alternatives, not just for retail packaging, but also for more advanced bio-based packaging solutions that offer greater product protection and extended product shelf-life while also being applicable in more end-use sectors.
New recycling technologies
Over the next five years, China is expected to continue investing in growing recycling capacities across the country and establish stronger systems for waste collection and sorting beyond urban cities to rural areas. This means packaging solutions that are sortable and recycling-friendly are likely to be welcomed.
In addition to mechanical recycling, China appears to also be interested in developing chemical recycling capacities. A recent report published by the government’s Academy of Macroeconomic Research (AMR) calls for intensified efforts to promote chemical recycling as a key solution to addressing plastics pollution, considering its potential to dispose of low-value plastics waste that is difficult to recycle. It notes that ‘like other countries and regions, China also faces the development bottleneck in further increasing the rate. There is an urgent need to tap [into] chemical recycling’.
AMR estimates that China could produce 155m/t of plastics per annum by 2035. If 30 per cent of the country’s plastics waste is chemically recycled in 2035, the country will be able to reduce plastics waste by almost 36m/t a year, the academy says. Chemical recycling is also much preferable to incineration, AMR adds, as it estimates that chemical recycling can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 22.3m/t and also save 108m/t of oil.
AMR concludes its report by proposing that chemical recycling be incorporated as a key part of the China’s governance system for controlling plastics pollution and guaranteeing energy security, as well as the country’s policy and regulation system for managing plastics pollution.
It should be made ‘a core solution to tackle plastics pollution’, it says, while also suggesting the establishment of a recycling system that furthers the development of chemical recycling, and the rolling out of demonstration projects that apply the approach.
