Based on the lack of uniform standards for calculation of carbon footprint of circulating boxes and the lack of relevant research, which make the environmental value of circulating boxes questionable, the work aims to study the carbon footprint of circulating boxes, to establish a carbon emission calculation model based on the life cycle assessment (LCA) method applicable to circulating packaging. Based on the full life cycle assessment method and referring to the B2B application scenarios of domestic circulating packaging enterprise A, eFootprint software and database were used for quantitative analysis. Due to the recyclability of polypropylene material, it was widely used in circulating packaging of express. With the circulating box of polypropylene material as an example, the carbon footprint was studied. With a 1 m2 circulating express packaging box as the functional unit, the method of "from cradle to grave" was adopted to quantitatively compare the material consumption, energy consumption and environmental impact of its production, operation, recycling and other processes. The contribution value of each unit process to the global warming potential, an environmental indicator, was evaluated and analyzed. The results showed that the contribution of carbon emissions from circulating packaging mainly came from four aspects:the transport emissions from the recycling process, accounting for 57.95% of the total emissions; followed by raw material polypropylene, accounting for 24.25% of the total emissions; electric power emission, including power generated in production and cleaning, accounting for 11.71% of the total emissions; and waste incineration process after scrapping, accounting for 5.33% of the total emissions. The CO2 equivalent of using nearly 50 times was 9.854 1 kg/m2. The carbon emission in single use of the circulating packaging is far lower than that of the 5-layer corrugated box with the same area unit, indicating that the recycling packaging has high environmental protection value under ideal conditions.