Green Packaging Materials Industry Operations and Development Strategies

Taking reduction, harmlessness, and recycling as the main direction of development

On the basis of ensuring the main functions of packaging protection, convenience, and promotion, efforts should be made to reduce the amount of packaging materials, limit excessive packaging, develop appropriate packaging, and strive to develop lightweight, thin-walled high-performance new materials, such as once for beer bottles. The lighter and thinner glass bottle packaging can reduce the weight and reduce the transportation costs, while avoiding the accidental explosion after recycling beer bottles. Another example is the use of new lightweight magnesium metal materials to replace tin cans, to produce lightweight, strong, beautiful small packaging cans for packaging coatings and butter.

Harmlessness is the characteristic that green packaging materials must have. Non-toxic, non-toxic, non-fluorinated and biodegradable is the current development direction of green packaging materials, and it is also the main development direction this year. Non-toxic and harmless means that during the entire life cycle of a product (material), the selection of raw materials, the extraction of raw materials, the production process, the products produced, and the post-disposal disposal shall not cause harm to the human body and the environment; In the process of refrigeration and foaming, products do not use chlorofluorocarbons that destroy the atmosphere's ozone layer. Degradable means that the waste can be dissolved in the natural environment without contamination of the environment.

Recycling has two meanings. First, the green packaging materials developed should meet the national conditions of China's resources, have abundant reserves, and be renewable resources. Such as the use of China's rich bamboo material development bamboo plastic packaging box to replace the wooden box packaging, development of plant fiber materials for food fast food packaging and buffer packaging materials. Plant fiber materials are rich in origin, low in price, renewable, and have good buffering, non-toxic, odorless, good ventilation, full degradation, etc., and therefore have the development value. The second is that packaging materials should be easy to recycle and regenerate. Therefore, we must pay attention to the development of pollution-free recycling technology for packaging materials, especially the recycling technology of plastic packaging materials, so that waste materials can be reused after the use of packaging, which is also strongly advocated by the country's current development of circular economy. In the current development of new types of green packaging materials and development of waste packaging materials recycling technology, we should pay more attention to the latter.

While developing basic materials for green packaging, the basic materials for the development of green packaging auxiliary materials and composite materials are the basis of packaging materials. While it is very important, green packaging as a whole must also have green packaging auxiliary materials.

Although the amount of auxiliary materials used is not large, it has an impact on the green performance of packaged products. For example, organic solvent-based adhesives tend to evaporate during processing and emit toxic hydrocarbon gases, especially benzene. Xylene gas seriously damages human health and may even cause cancer. Therefore, it is necessary to vigorously develop water-based solvent-based adhesives (or inks, coatings). Currently, there is a need to further improve water-based solvent-based adhesives, inks, and coatings. Drying speed, adhesion and gloss.

Composite materials are widely used in packaging materials, including plastic composites, paper-plastic composites, plastic-aluminum composites, paper-plastic aluminum composites, plastic-wood composites, and other composite methods. Their greatest advantages are their versatility. Such as a variety of barrier function, moisture permeability, etc., to make it high-performance, economic efficiency is very prominent. The biggest disadvantage of composite materials is that they are difficult to recycle, difficult to separate and separate, and composite materials such as mixed into a single material will cause the recovery quality of a single material to be damaged. For example, aluminum paper and plastic composite materials are mixed into a single cardboard recycling material. , it will destroy the beating performance; composite film, such as mixing into a single plastic film, will also make recycled recycled products scrapped. Therefore, when the composite material is recycled, it can only be used as a fuel, and it is burned in the incinerator to recover heat energy. At present, to resolve the contradiction between the high-functionality and environmental performance of composite materials, the main directions are: 1 to develop a single high-performance material to replace composite materials; 2 to develop green composite materials that are easy to recycle. Both are difficult to develop.

Developing clean production technology for green packaging materials

The environmental performance of packaging materials should be evaluated throughout the life cycle. In fact, the environmental pollution caused by paper, plastics, metal, and glass packaging used mainly in the production process is far greater than the environmental pollution caused by waste disposal. For example, waste paper discharged from paper packaging in pulp and paper, and plastic packaging in petroleum raw materials. Pollution caused by atmospheric pollution in the refining process, metal packaging in the grinding, noise generated in the coating process, smoke and dust caused by physical and mental pollution to the workers, glass packaging in the smelting process emissions of dust and carbon dioxide, silica on the environment The pollution coming from is very serious. Therefore, in order to make the packaging material have "green" performance throughout its life cycle, clean production must be carried out.

Among the three elements of "clean energy and raw materials," "clean production processes," and "clean products," the most important is the development of clean production technology. Clean production processes are "less waste" and "non-waste" processes. It is necessary to establish the production of closed loops to volatilize or precipitate or run off the material lost during the production process. Through recycling and reuse as raw materials, a closed production process from raw material input to recycling of wastes is established. Emissions from external wastes will not only increase resource utilization, but also radically eliminate the “three wastes” and cause the packaging industry to produce no harm to the environment. China has officially implemented the "Cleaner Production Promotion Law" on January 1st, 2003. Enterprises that are poisonous and harmful to the production process and pollute the environment must be subject to compulsory cleaner production audits. Therefore, it is very important for the development of green packaging materials to vigorously develop clean production process technologies for green packaging materials.


Formulation and improvement of laws and regulations for green packaging materials

The development and use of green packaging materials and the development of green packaging, if only the people's good wishes, without the mandatory requirements of the government and regulations, is difficult to achieve the desired results. Because the research and development of green packaging materials require considerable manpower and material resources, the formation of green packaging requires special technology, which inevitably leads to an increase in the cost of packaging materials and containers. At present, when manufacturers and users have relatively weak environmental awareness, they will not consciously use higher costs to produce and use environmentally friendly packaging. Therefore, legislation must be adopted to manage the production and use of green packaging materials in order to promote the development of green packaging materials and green packaging. Enforcing the development of green packaging by legislation is also an effective method commonly used by all countries in the world. We have a weak foundation in this respect and need to catch up. To formulate effective laws and regulations, on the one hand, we should learn from the experiences of developed countries, and on the other hand, we should carry out scientific research on packaging and environmental science. What is even more important to note is that we must combine the national conditions of our country and bring into play the enthusiasm of the broad masses of the people and the socialist system. Superiority.

The regulatory content of green packaging materials should include environmental standards for green packaging materials, administrative regulations to control the total amount of emissions, as well as environmental purification technology regulations that prevent and eliminate pollutants discharged into the environment, and should also establish the use of packaged waste. A system for recycling and reuse, and set 5, 10 years to achieve the goal of recycling of packaging materials. Green packaging material regulations can also be incorporated into green packaging regulations, such as the "Packaging Waste Restriction Law" or "Packaging Law."

Formulate green packaging material development plan and work together to overcome difficulties

The development of green packaging materials involves many high-tech, industrial developed countries have been researching fully biodegradable plastics for several years, but so far there are not many real industrial products, which involves many experimental research and industrial production problems. The development of green packaging materials is not only a matter of the packaging industry, but also requires the cooperation of the entire industry; not only industrial enterprises, but also research institutes and universities. Therefore, we should give full play to the superiority of the social system, formulate a 5-10 year development plan for green packaging materials, and put forward major research and development projects and goals, such as high-performance, low-cost pulp molded disposable tableware and packaging products, instead of wooden boxes. Packaged honeycomb cardboard boxes and production equipment, plant fiber cushion packaging products, fully biodegradable plastics, edible packaging materials, high-strength thin-walled lightweight glass bottles, high-quality recycling recycling packaging technology, especially the high waste plastics Quality recovery and recycling technologies, especially the green technology of waste plastics, etc., focus on people's property, organize elite teams, and have plans and targets to carry out research and collaboration, so that the development of China's green packaging materials into the forefront of the world.