Resisting Food Waste Through the Three Oppositions Campaign in the 13th Five-Year Plan

“Deeply carry out campaigns against excessive packaging, against food waste, and against excessive consumption”——the “Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Formulating the 13th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development” issued a few days ago put forward the “Three Oppositions Campaign,” firmly saying “no” to waste and other such behavior.

⟦NL“The plan recommendations state that this campaign should be used to “promote the formation of a social trend of diligence and thrift.” This recommendation, which strictly opposes extravagant consumption and curbs the trend of extravagance, has attracted attention and struck a chord among officials and the public.

The First Opposition”: The “face” of excessive packaging should be “de-swelled”

Silk ribbons, vintage faux leather, mahogany carvings, double-layer gift boxes……with luxurious and prestigious packaging, cigarettes, alcohol, tea, health products and cosmetics priced at over a thousand or tens of thousands at every turn were once extremely prevalent.

Hou Yunchun, former deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, previously said that excessive packaging is a huge waste in China's economy. One third of urban garbage is packaging, and more than half of that packaging is excessive packaging. Solving the problem of excessive packaging is expected to save a large amount of social resources every year.

In addition to creating waste and polluting the environment, excessive packaging is widely criticized because behind luxurious gifts lurks the use of public funds for consumption and the giving of gifts with public funds. Since the implementation of the Eight-Point Regulation, the trend of corruption through festivals and celebrations has greatly diminished. But this Mid-Autumn Festival, information from the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Ministry of Supervision and visits by reporters found that in some high-end hotels and shopping malls in Beijing, Guangdong, Fujian and other places, luxurious high-priced mooncakes reappeared under new “tricks” such as “private customization.” The Shanghai quality supervision department also reported in July that products from multiple brands including Luzhou Laojiao, By-Health, Kangfulai and Centrum all had excessive packaging problems.

Experts say that excessive packaging is incompatible with the traditional virtue of frugality cherished by the Chinese nation, and even more so runs counter to the requirements of building a resource-saving and environment-friendly society.

“The ‘13th Five-Year Plan’ recommendations put forward the concepts of green development and shared development. A very important requirement is that everyone cherish the environment and save resources.” said Zhu Lijia, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance. He said that regarding the problem of excessive packaging, on the one hand society as a whole needs to establish an awareness of ecological civilization and environmentally friendly and frugal consumption, and at the same time it is also necessary to formulate and promulgate relevant laws and regulations on packaging in China as soon as possible, so as to restrict the proliferation of excessive packaging from the source.

“The Second Opposition”: Resist food waste, cherish limited resources

“Only luxury and high-end counts as lavish; only leftovers after the meal show sincerity.” For a long time, the phenomenon of food waste in China has been very serious.

The central government issued the “Eight-Point Regulation” and vigorously opposed the “Four Malfeasances,” effectively plugging the table waste caused by dining and drinking with public funds, and the waste phenomenon noticeably improved. However, recently, the phenomenon of wasting food has appeared in people's view in another way. Not long ago, Yangzhou, Jiangsu fried a 4-ton “largest portion of fried rice” to challenge the Guinness World Record, after which part of the fried rice was sent to feed pigs as kitchen waste.

The huge waste caused by the absurd “record-breaking” runs counter to the “strict practice of diligence and thrift” advocated by the whole of society. This shows that curbing “waste on the tip of the tongue” cannot be achieved overnight, and making food conservation a common practice still has a long way to go.

Some people say that China's grain output has had “twelve consecutive bumper harvests,” eating is no longer a problem, so is saving food still important?

Hunger is a silent crisis. “At present China still has more than 70 million rural poor people and more than 20 million urban residents receiving minimum living allowances and people in difficulty. This national condition determines that we cannot be extravagant and wasteful.” said Li Lusheng, a researcher at the Institute of Rural Economics of the Ningxia Academy of Social Sciences.

Data released by the State Administration of Grain in 2014 show that each year in China alone, losses and waste in the grain storage, transportation and processing stages amount to as much as 70 billion jin, and the grain wasted outside the dining table each year is about 35 million tons.

“The problem of food waste is a major challenge to China's future food security.” pointed out Cheng Guoqiang, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council. In the future, China should further improve the design of policies and regulations, establish a grain management system, pricing system and waste punishment system that reduce waste and loss, and make the whole of society cherish grain as a “scarce resource.”

“The Third Opposition”: Let luxury consumption continue to cool down

China is becoming a major consumer of global luxury goods……Some research points out that excessive consumption behavior in China is currently mainly manifested as “premature consumption, conspicuous consumption and pathological consumption.”

The “2015 China Consumer Market Development Report” released by the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce shows that Chinese consumers' global luxury goods consumption reached 106 billion US dollars last year, accounting for 46% of global luxury goods consumption, making them the world's largest group of luxury goods consumers.

A survey report released in October this year by KPMG and a luxury retailer website and other institutions shows that a survey of 90 Chinese cities found that average luxury consumption in most product categories rose compared with last year. For example, watches rose 126%, bags rose 109%, and jewelry rose 65%.

Experts believe that in addition to luxury consumption of goods, some places are still building oversized office buildings and halls and carrying out excessive decoration, which also counts as squandering and waste.

Li Lusheng said that excessive consumption runs counter to building a conservation-minded society. Public awareness of green consumption should be enhanced in various forms, resources should be saved, and people should consciously resist abnormal consumption behavior such as excessive consumption and conspicuous consumption as well as high-consumption, high-expenditure lifestyles. Relevant laws and regulations should be issued as soon as possible to curb excessive consumption. “Implementing this ‘Three Oppositions Campaign’ is conducive to consolidating earlier achievements and is indeed timely.”

“The people take officials as teachers.” Zhu Lijia said that curbing excessive consumption must start with Party and government organs and leading officials. Strict governance of the Party and resolutely cracking down on extravagance must be persistent. Regarding new changes and new problems in the field of work style, relevant departments still need to expand supervision channels, innovate supervision methods and resolutely stop them.