More efforts should be made to stop enterprises over-packaging their food products, says an article in the Guangming Daily. An excerpt follows:

The State Administration for Industry and Commerce recently issued a directive calling for its local agencies to investigate the problem of over-packaged food products.

Over-packaging is an environmentally unfriendly practice. It is estimated that, of the 3 million tons of refuse Beijing churns out every year, commodity packaging makes up about 830,000 tons, of which 600,000 tons is unnecessary.

Over-packaging also leads to a huge waste of resources. For example, China produces about 1.2 billion shirts annually, which consumes about 240,000 tons of paper for packaging boxes. It takes 1.68 million trees of a bowl-sized diameter to produce this amount of paper.

As the world's most populous country, China cannot afford to waste resources so wantonly.

In addition, the practice of over-wrapping food impairs consumers' interests and rights.

To discourage or stop this practice will require long-term efforts, for which an effective mechanism is needed.

First, relevant rules should be enacted to regulate such practices. Although the existing law has a clause on limiting the practice of over-packaging, it lacks practical details.

Second, economic measures can be used to curb such wasteful practices. For example, the government could levy a tax on packaging that is not recyclable.

(China Daily June 15, 2005)