For the past six years, Yu Yuan has been doing everything she can to live a life that produces no non-degradable waste. She takes her own coffee mug and chopsticks to cafes and restaurants, she buys second-hand clothes and she never orders food deliveries. During the day, she runs a shop in an old Beijing alley that sells housewares. None are single-use plastic and customers don’t get a bag.

“It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible, because every Chinese person used to have a low-carbon lifestyle when the country was less developed,” said Yu, 30. “I will find ways to make it happen.”

China set a goal two years ago to reach peak emissions before 2030 and zero them out by 2060, and one of the 10 key missions of the government’s official roadmap to meet those targets is a “green lifestyle for all people.” Designed to raise people’s awareness of their personal carbon footprints, it encourages the promotion of low-emission products, better labeling and more climate education. In practice, though, it’s not easy for Chinese consumers to make informed choices about what they buy, because the country lags behind places like Europe in requiring and policing product information.

“China should build a legal system to promote green-product certification and make sure the system has strong legal support,” said Wang Jianming, a professor at Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics. 

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Take shopping for example. The sector in China has moved online fast, making low-carbon purchases harder. Last year, the online share of retail sales was projected to be more than half the total in the country, up from just 20% in 2016. In the US it’s about 15% and even less in Western Europe. All those delivered goods generated 9.4 million tons of packaging in China in 2018, according to Greenpeace, and the amount could rise by 2025 to 41 million tons, equivalent to Japan’s total annual waste.

Every year, China’s leading e-commerce platforms, including Taobao.com and JD.com, promote their green efforts, exhorting sellers to use more recyclable packaging and less plastic tape. Yet the pace of expansion of the industry is overwhelming and while there’s no penalty for over-packing, sellers risk losing money if poorly protected goods are damaged during transit.

On Meituan and Ele.me, China’s biggest online food ordering platforms, customers now can book a “green order” by opting for no disposable cutlery. Yet even this small concession sometimes fails, with some restaurants just adding the plastic utensils anyway.