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Photo Credit: Xi Dahe
ENVIRONMENT

What’s the Deal with Overpackaging in China?

Excess packaging creates millions of tons of waste each year. What can China do about this problem?

The cardboard box sits half-empty, filled with eight 125-gram cups of yogurt on foam trays spaced two finger-widths apart. Each is crowned with a thick plastic blue dome—supposedly a tribute to the seaside architecture of Santorini, Greece—that can be fixed to the bottom of the cup as a base, turning it into a “goblet” that “instantly unlocks a sense of ceremony” for the yogurt-eater, according to the description on the label.

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What’s the Deal with Overpackaging in China? is a story from our issue, “State of The Art.” To read the entire issue, become a subscriber and receive the full magazine.

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