How much waste does Taobao produce? In 2026 the packaging on parcels sold through Taobao is estimated to reach about 9.7 million metric tonnes (21 billion pounds), covering the boxes, bags, tape and filler on the parcels their sellers ship.
That is Taobao's parcels, not Alibaba's offices or data centres. No one publishes the number, Alibaba included, so it is built here from China's parcel count, Taobao's estimated share of it, and the measured weight of packaging on a Chinese parcel.
Alibaba's environmental report puts their total waste at 457,975 tonnes, counted across data centres, supermarkets and offices. The packaging on Taobao's parcels comes to roughly 9.7 million tonnes, about twenty times as much, and appears in no report at all.
Taobao's packaging waste year by year (2021-2026)
The estimate holds Taobao's share of China's parcels steady, so the totals below rise and fall with the number of parcels the country ships.
| Year | Packaging waste (tonnes) | Change on prior year |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 9,690,000 | +680,000 |
| 2025 | 9,010,000 | +1,110,000 |
| 2024 | 7,900,000 | +1,920,000 |
| 2023 | 5,980,000 | +970,000 |
| 2022 | 5,010,000 | +100,000 |
| 2021 | 4,910,000 | baseline |
Note: Every line is an estimate rather than a reported figure. It takes China's published parcel volumes from the State Post Bureau, assumes Taobao and Tmall account for 30% of them, and applies 151 grams of packaging per parcel. The section below sets out all three inputs.
The shape of the curve is not Taobao becoming more wasteful. It is China shipping far more parcels, and Taobao's slice of a much larger pile.
The steepest year is 2024, when the national count jumped by 42 billion parcels. The flattest is 2022, when lockdowns held the country to an extra 2.28 billion.
How we got to 9.7 million tonnes
The estimate rests on three numbers. Two of them are published and the third is ours, so it is set out here in full and the effect of changing it is shown below.
- China's parcel count. The State Post Bureau forecast 214 billion express parcels for 2026, after 198.95 billion in 2025. This is an official figure and the firmest part of the chain.
- Taobao's share of those parcels. Nobody publishes it. Taobao and Tmall are estimated at roughly 46% of China's e-commerce sales, on a Guosen Securities figure for the end of 2022, but their share of parcels has to be lower than their share of sales. Rivals like Pinduoduo and Douyin sell cheaper items, so they ship more parcels for every yuan they take. This page uses 30%.
- The packaging on one parcel. 151 grams, taken from the most recent published total for China's express sector, 20 million tonnes across 132.07 billion parcels in 2023.
Multiplying them gives the headline. 214 billion parcels, 30% of them, at 151 grams each, comes to 9.7 million tonnes.
The share is the number a reader is most likely to disagree with, so here is what the answer looks like if it is wrong in either direction.
| If Taobao's share of parcels is | Parcels in 2026 | Packaging waste |
|---|---|---|
| 25% | 53.5 billion | 8.1 million tonnes |
| 30% | 64.2 billion | 9.7 million tonnes |
| 35% | 74.9 billion | 11.3 million tonnes |
Note: The 30% central case sits below Taobao and Tmall's estimated share of sales for the reason given above, and the band is deliberately wide. Anyone who prefers a different share can read their own answer off this table.
Where the 151 grams comes from
Two studies have put a number on the packaging riding on China's parcels. Neither is about Taobao, and together they are the best available measure of what a parcel carries.
| What was measured | Packaging waste found | Works out at |
|---|---|---|
| China's express sector in 2018, across 50.7 billion parcels | 8.8 million tonnes | about 174 g a parcel |
| China's express sector in 2023, across 132.07 billion parcels | 20 million tonnes | about 151 g a parcel |
Note: The 2018 line is from a field survey of more than 8,000 parcels published in Nature Communications, which put the total at 3.9% of China's municipal waste. The 2023 line was reported by Xinhua and carried in a 2026 review in Frontiers in Sustainability.
The two rates are not a measured trend, because two teams used two methods five years apart. This page uses the later one on the grounds that it is more recent, not because the drop between them has been demonstrated.
What a parcel is wrapped in
The 2018 survey also weighed what the packaging consists of. Cardboard dominates by a wider margin than most people expect.
| Material | Share of packaging weight |
|---|---|
| Corrugated boxes | 90.8% |
| Plastic bags | 5.9% |
| Envelopes | 1.7% |
| Other packaging | 1.6% |
Note: Measured across more than 8,000 parcels and roughly 21,000 electronic waybills, published in Nature Communications. Shares are by weight, so plastic looks small here despite the 8 billion large plastic bags the same survey counted.
How much of it comes back
The published estimates disagree, and no third source settles it.
The 2018 survey found corrugated boxes recovered at around 80% by mass, helped by China's long-standing trade in scrap paper, while plastic bags came back at about 1.5%. The 2023 figure reported by Xinhua puts the overall recycling rate below 20%.
What both agree on is that the plastic is the part that does not come back. China's revised express delivery rules, in force since 1 June 2025, push the couriers towards reusable packaging and less packaging per parcel. Nothing in them requires Taobao to report a figure.
What Taobao is and how an order works
Taobao launched in 2003 as a marketplace where anyone could sell to anyone. Tmall was carved out of it in 2008 for established brands, and the two have run side by side ever since.
The distinction that matters for waste is that Taobao is software, not a shop. Nothing in the following sequence involves Alibaba handling a box.
- A seller lists an item. They hold their own stock, in their own premises, and set their own packaging.
- A buyer places an order. Taobao take a cut for the listing, the advertising and the payment.
- The seller packs it. They choose the box or the bag, the tape, and whatever filler goes around the item.
- A courier collects it. Usually one of China's private delivery firms rather than Alibaba's own logistics arm.
- The parcel is delivered. It has been created, filled, sealed and carried without Alibaba touching it once.
That chain is why the tonnage has to be estimated rather than read off a report. No single company in it owns the packaging decision.
The boundary that leaves Taobao out
Alibaba publish a detailed environmental report every year, and it is specific about what the waste figure covers. Their words are worth reading closely, because the boundary is stated rather than hidden.
Within their operational boundaries, they write, waste "primarily stems from the business activities of Alibaba Cloud and Freshippo as well as the daily usage of our office campuses." That is server rooms, supermarkets and offices.
They report packaging separately, and draw that line too. It covers "logistics services fulfilled or procured by Alibaba for Cainiao, AliExpress, and Lazada." Taobao is not on that list either.
So a parcel packed by a Taobao seller and carried by a third-party courier falls outside both numbers. The figures on our page about how much waste Alibaba produce are real, and they simply describe something else.
Not even a revenue line
Taobao has no separate line for money either. Alibaba told investors that "during the quarter ended June 30, 2025, we undertook a strategic combination of Taobao and Tmall Group, Ele.me and Fliggy into Alibaba China E-commerce Group."
Taobao's scale still shows up in those accounts even where its waste does not. The division holding it took RMB 554,217 million in revenue in the year to 31 March 2026, and 88VIP, Alibaba's paid membership tier, passed 62 million members.
Double 11 and the parcels Taobao sets off
Alibaba built 11 November into a shopping festival, and Taobao and Tmall are where it runs. It is the one moment when the parcels Taobao sets in motion get counted directly, even if the count is national rather than per platform.
| Measure | 2025 Double 11 |
|---|---|
| Parcels handled, 21 October to 11 November | 13.94 billion |
| Daily average over that period | 634 million |
| Peak day, 11 November | 777 million |
| Peak rate | about 9,000 parcels a second |
Note: Figures published by China's State Post Bureau on 13 November 2025. The daily average ran at 1.18 times normal volumes, and the 11 November total was a record. The per-second rate is ours, dividing 777 million by the seconds in a day.
Three weeks of promotions produced 13.94 billion parcels, roughly one in every fourteen China will handle across the whole year. At 30% and 151 grams, Taobao's share of that fortnight alone is around 630,000 tonnes of packaging.
What Alibaba say about Taobao's packaging
Alibaba do publish packaging work, and some of it is substantial. It sits beside the Taobao question rather than answering it.
Cainiao, their logistics arm, cut packaging material use by about 189,000 tonnes in the year to March 2026 and reused more than 24 million cardboard boxes in warehousing. They also ran roughly 143,000 reusable crates through more than 1.4 million uses, about ten cycles each.
Set against the estimate on this page, that 189,000 tonnes is under 2% of the packaging leaving Taobao's sellers in a year.
Alibaba report avoided emissions too. Xianyu, their second-hand marketplace, accounts for 12.788 million tonnes of them, and low-carbon product choices on Taobao and Tmall for a further 36.044 million tonnes. Those are emissions figures rather than waste figures.
The one waste goal Alibaba set
Their environmental report lists a single waste goal, stated in full as ensuring that "100% of our waste disposal is handled by certified contractors." It is marked as implemented.
There is no waste reduction target in the report, no recycling-rate target and no landfill-diversion target. Their carbon goals, by contrast, are dated and specific, including carbon neutrality in their own operations by 2030.
Frequently asked questions about Taobao's waste
Below are the seven questions that come up most often about Taobao's waste, answered from the estimate and the sources behind it.
How much waste does Taobao produce each year?
About 9.7 million tonnes of parcel packaging in 2026, on the estimate set out on this page. The plausible range runs from 8.1 to 11.3 million tonnes, depending on what share of China's parcels Taobao is assumed to carry.
How was Taobao's waste figure worked out?
China's State Post Bureau forecast 214 billion parcels for 2026. This page assumes Taobao and Tmall account for 30% of them and applies 151 grams of packaging per parcel, the rate implied by China's most recent published packaging total.
Does Alibaba report Taobao's waste separately?
No. Alibaba's waste figure covers Alibaba Cloud, their Freshippo supermarkets and their office campuses. Their packaging figure covers Cainiao, AliExpress and Lazada. Taobao appears in neither, and has had no separate financial segment since mid-2025.
How many parcels does Taobao ship?
Neither Taobao nor anyone else publishes it. China's whole express network handled 198.95 billion parcels in 2025, and the 30% assumption used here puts Taobao's sellers at roughly 60 billion of them.
What is a Taobao parcel made of?
The best available breakdown covers China's express sector as a whole. By weight it is 90.8% corrugated cardboard, 5.9% plastic bags, 1.7% envelopes and 1.6% other materials, measured across more than 8,000 parcels in 2018.
Is the packaging on Taobao parcels recycled?
The estimates disagree sharply. The 2018 survey found corrugated boxes recovered at around 80% by mass and plastic bags at about 1.5%, while a 2023 figure reported by Xinhua puts express packaging recycling below 20% overall.
Who is responsible for the packaging on a Taobao order?
In China the seller chooses it and the courier carries the reporting duty. Elsewhere the rules are moving the other way, and cross-border e-commerce EPR increasingly puts the obligation on the marketplace itself rather than the individual seller.
