Under the impact of the world environmental protection tide, the development of green packaging has attracted the attention of the packaging industry, and has also become a hot topic in academic circles. This is a very welcome phenomenon. In academic discussions, a central issue is how to define green packaging. What is green packaging? There are many opinions. In order to highlight the major problems that should be solved in the current development of green packaging and to guide the healthy development of green packaging, this article wants to discuss the definition and grading objectives of green packaging and the peers in the packaging industry: First, the "green packaging" In 1987, the United Nations Commission on Environment and Development issued the Declaration of Our Common Future. In June 1992, the United Nations Environment and Development Assembly adopted the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Agenda 21, setting off worldwide A green wave centered on protecting the environment and saving resources.
Green means natural growing plants, metaphor means that plants are flourishing, vibrant, representing life and vitality; green tide or green revolution is a sign of environmental pollution and resource destruction, and calls for creating a clean, fresh, natural ecological environment for humanity. The group's effort. For a time, the "green food", "green refrigerator", "green car", "green building materials", "green clothing", "green market", "green industry", "green city", etc. The emergence of an unstoppable torrent.
Most of the packaging is one-time consumer goods, with a short life cycle, and a large amount of waste. According to statistics, the annual amount of packaging waste accounts for approximately one-third of the city's fixed waste, and accounts for 1/2 of its volume. The amount of emissions is increasing at a rate of 10% per year. As a result, the pollution of packaging waste to the environment has become increasingly prominent, causing great concern to the world public and the environmental protection community. Environmental protection circles in the United States and Other countries have put forward three opinions on reducing the quality of packaging waste: First, they should try to avoid or minimize the use of packaging; Second, they should try to recycle packaging; Third, those that cannot be recycled can be biodegradable, not harmful to the public. surroundings. For this reason, Germany, France, the United States, the European Community and other countries have successively formulated strict packaging waste restriction laws.
"Green packaging" as a new concept to effectively solve the packaging and the environment emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This new concept is also known abroad as "pollution-free packaging" or "friendship of the environment," China's packaging industry began in 1993, using the metaphor of environmental protection, collectively referred to as green packaging. Second, the connotation of green packaging From the source of green packaging analysis, we can see that the most important meaning of green packaging is to protect the environment, while both the significance of resource regeneration. Specifically, it should have the following meanings:
1. Reduce packaging. Packaging should meet the requirements of protection, convenience, sales, etc., and should be used in the minimum amount.
2. The packaging should be easy to reuse or easy to recycle. Through the production of recycled products, the use of thermal energy through incineration, composting to improve the soil and other measures to achieve the purpose of reuse.
3. Packaging waste can be degraded (Degradable). Does not form permanent waste, and then achieve the purpose of improving the soil.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Degradable are the 3R1D principles recognized by the world today for the development of green packaging.
4. Packaging materials should be non-toxic and harmless to humans and organisms. Packaging materials should not contain toxic elements, halogens, and heavy metals; or the content should be controlled below relevant standards.
5. Packaging products from the collection of raw materials, materials processing, manufacturing products, product use, waste recycling and regeneration, and ultimately handling the entire life of the process should not cause harm to the human body and the environment. The first four points should be the requirements that green packaging must have. The last point is based on the life cycle analysis method (LCA), using the system engineering point of view, put forward the highest requirements for green packaging.
Third, the definition of green packaging and classification goals Through the above analysis, we can make the following definition of green packaging:
Recyclable, recyclable or degradable, and appropriate packaging that does not cause harm to humans and the environment throughout the product's lifecycle is called green packaging.
Green packaging ideal packaging, to fully meet its requirements requires a process in order to both have the direction of the pursuit, but also for the operation to achieve the objectives of the stage, we can follow the green food grading standards approach to develop green packaging grading standards.
Grade A green packaging: refers to waste that can be reused, reused, or degraded, and moderately contained within the specified limits.
AA grade green packaging: refers to waste that can be reused, reused or degraded, and does not cause harm to the human body and the environment throughout the product life cycle, and contains toxic substances within the prescribed limits.
The above classification mainly considers that it is the first priority to solve the problem of waste after packaging. This is a hot spot for the protection of the environment in the world, and it is also the main content of the development of green packaging; on this basis, it further addresses the pollution in the packaging production process. This is a problem that has been solved for many years and still needs to be resolved. Life cycle analysis (LCA) is, of course, a method of comprehensively evaluating the performance of the packaging environment, and is also a method of comparing the environmental performance of packaging materials, but it should be of importance in solving problems. The use of two-level grading objectives will enable us to highlight the key issues in the development of green packaging, and attach importance to the development of late-stage packaging industry, instead of requiring full censure and confusing development ideas.
At the present stage in our country, all the materials that are conducive to the solution of waste and that can solve the waste disposal should be actively supported and promoted.