Green Takeout, Low-Carbon First - Beijing Releases the Country's First Green Packaging Guidelines for Food Delivery Merchants
Food delivery packaging is a common 'character' in the fast-paced urban life and has become one of the main sources of household waste. Since most of it is disposable and used for a short time, it's hard to recycle after use, leading to a lot of resource waste and environmental pollution.
To strengthen packaging pollution management and promote a new 'saving' trend in the capital, the Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission's Environmental Protection Department has carried out a series of standardization projects. Among them, the two local Beijing standards, "Evaluation Requirements for Green Packaging in Food Distribution" and "Green Packaging Usage Guidelines for Food Delivery Merchants," were formulated by the China National Packaging Research Institute.
On June 15th, the launch ceremony for the Beijing series of events for the 2026 National Energy Conservation Publicity Week was held in Beijing. At the event, Guo Shuhua, Deputy Director of the Standardization Division of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Market Supervision, read out the announcement for the release of the "Guidelines for Green Packaging Use by Catering and Takeaway Merchants" standard. Feng Qingzheng, Deputy Chief Engineer of the Research Institute and the lead drafter of the standard, was invited to explain the standard. Wang Yumin, Deputy Director of the Resources and Environment Division of the Beijing Development and Reform Commission, Wang Jilong, Director of the Planning Department of the Beijing Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Center, Hu Zhengyang, Deputy Secretary-General of the China Packaging Federation, Huang Peikun, head of the plastic topic for Meituan's Green Mountain Program, and representatives from catering brands jointly proposed a joint initiative for implementing the standard. After the event, Feng Qingzheng was interviewed by several media outlets including CCTV News Channel, Beijing TV, and Beijing Daily.
Set comprehensive standards for the selection, use, and recycling of takeout packaging, encourage the city's restaurant workers to follow green packaging standards, push the industry to reduce plastic and carbon emissions, and build a low-carbon takeout development ecosystem.
The release of this standard marks the conclusion of the preliminary work the institute has done in recent years on promoting green development in food delivery. Next, the institute will continue to push for cooperation with relevant organizations, focus on promoting and implementing the standard, and use standardization as a means to continue supporting the development of a green and low-carbon lifestyle.