"Green Packaging" and Business Opportunities

Modern packaging waste has a serious impact on the environment, resulting in "white pollution" has become a concern of the world. According to statistics, China produces about 15 million tons of packaging waste per year, of which mainly plastic packaging waste, and discards nearly 100,000 tons each year. What stands out is the plastic lunch boxes, cutlery, cup trays and foam cushioning materials. , beverage bottles, yogurt cups, various plastic packaging for candy and snack foods, and various plastic bags. These plastic products will not be rotted or degraded in the past 100 years after they are discarded. The amount of waste generated is large and difficult to manage. To this end, various countries have proposed many new standards and regulations for packaging materials and packaging waste. The development of green packaging that uses less material, has less waste, is easy to recycle, or can be self-degraded is an inevitable result of complying with the world's environmental protection trend and solving environmental protection and economic development. The overall development trend of the world packaging industry is to harmonize international packaging standards, regulations and environmental protection in the next 10-15 years. At the 7th National Conference on Packaging Academics held in Guangzhou last month, green packaging also became the focus of the topic. In today's world, green has become a representative environment, a representative forest, and a symbol of life. The so-called green packaging or environmental protection packaging usually refers to packaging that completely complies with environmental protection standards from the design, production and production to post-consumer waste disposal. It has three conditions: First, under the conditions of satisfying the packaging function, the least used materials, energy and resources, and packaging waste are the least; second, the waste packaging materials can be degraded on their own, and they can quickly rot and decompose after being buried. Dispel and destroy, do not pollute the environment. When incinerated, no poisonous gas and secondary pollution are generated, and new energy sources are easily generated. Third, packaging waste is easy to recycle, recycled, and recycled. In the “Ninth Five-Year Plan” of the national packaging industry and the 2010 Vision, 29 key green packaging projects were identified, of which 14 were paper packaging, 10 plastic packaging, 4 metal packaging, and 1 glass packaging. From this we can find business opportunities in many markets. Paper packaging is the mainstream of green packaging. Paper packaging products include traditional corrugated cartons, cartons, paper bags, paper cans, paper cups, and honeycomb panels, paper cushions, etc., which have been rapidly developed in recent years. Pulp molded products can utilize various plant fibers as raw materials, have a wide source, are low in cost, and do not waste resources. Moreover, post-consumer waste is easily recycled, and can be degraded on its own even if it is stored in nature without recycling. The pulp molding industry in western countries has a history of more than 80 years, and China has only 10 years of history and must catch up. However, the waste liquid produced during the papermaking process is a serious source of pollution. Therefore, the sewage treatment of paper mills is of vital importance. Existing people are studying semi-dry papermaking processes, reducing the dependence on water and heat through the application of chemical fibers, reducing energy consumption, and partially solving the environmental problems caused by emissions. Metal packaging products include aluminum two-piece cans, three-piece cans, steel two-piece cans, tinplate three-piece cans and steel packaging boxes. They are easy to recycle and some can be used multiple times. Glass bottles and cans are transparent, airtight, beautiful, good chemical stability, easy to seal, etc., and can guarantee the purity and non-deterioration of the packaged food and beverage. The glass bottle cans are rich in raw materials, flexible in design, and low in price. After food is consumed, glass bottles and cans can be used many times, easy to recycle, and have less environmental pollution. However, the disadvantages such as fragility and heavy weight still need to be improved. Other materials There are many materials in the natural world that can be used to make green packaging. For example, China is rich in bamboo resources. Bamboo is suitable for the manufacture of various non-polluting and easily recycled packaging containers. It is worth noting that since plastics have many excellent properties that other packaging materials cannot replace, plastics will remain one of the main packaging materials. The key issue is to solve the problem of plastic packaging waste disposal, such as the development of biological price-reduction plastics, recycling of waste plastics, and the formation of renewable energy. (Guangdong University of Technology Tang Zhixiang)