Nov 11, 2016 07:30 PM

China's Singles Day Shopping Craze Turns Into Environmental Nightmare

Workers sort out parcels at a delivery company in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province on Friday. The company saw three times more orders than on the same day last year. Photo: IC

China's Singles Day, the world's biggest shopping extravaganza that falls on Nov. 11, saw bargain hunters spend 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) in just seven minutes on the country's largest online shopping site, Alibaba's Tmall, on Friday after midnight.

But this spending orgy could choke landfills and take a huge toll on the environment, employees of waste-disposal and recycling firms say.

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