In addition to basic properties, life expectancy, low cost, and environmental friendliness, the product itself, to a certain extent, has a significant impact on the product's overall image and product competitiveness. The packaging of products has become more and more important, and has become an important factor in "green trade barriers" in international trade. Green packaging has become an inevitable trend in the future of the packaging industry. This chapter briefly discusses the objective background of green packaging products, the connotation and characteristics of green packaging, and green packaging design.
1 proposed green packaging
The packaging industry is an important part of the national economy. It is estimated that the annual packaging sales of the world is about 50 billion U.S. dollars, and more than 100,000 companies are manufacturing packaging products, employing more than 5 million people and accounting for 1.5%-2.3% of the GNP. In general, the packaging industry in developed countries is the 9th or 10th largest industry in the country. China's packaging industry started from the 1980s and has achieved rapid development for more than 10 years. The packaging industry has formed a relatively complete system and has a considerable scale.
As an industrial sector, the packaging industry is also facing environmental issues without exception. The environmental pollution in the packaging industry is mainly manifested in the various processes of production, storage, consumption, and use of packaging and products, as well as the pollution to the human body and the environment after consumption. The most important, most pernicious, and most public concern is packaging waste. Contamination of material. The United States produces about 150 million tons of municipal waste each year, of which 1/3 is packaging waste. In the European Community countries, annual municipal solid waste is about 100 million tons, of which packaging waste is more than 80 million tons. Japan's municipal solid waste is about 50 million tons, of which 21 million tons are packaging waste. A lot of packaging waste has caused serious environmental pollution. The governments of the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands have all enacted a packaging law that requires manufacturers, importers, and retailers to take responsibility for the recycling, reuse, and remanufacturing of packaging materials.
At present, the annual solid waste production in China is 600 million tons, of which 40% can be used and the rest are difficult to handle. Among these wastes, packaging waste accounts for about 1/3 of the total amount, causing serious pollution to the ecological environment in China.
The plastic packaging material that has been hailed as a “packaging revolution†has been the leader in the packaging field for 30 years. Today, it has become the target of public criticism under the impact of the “green wave†and is called “white pollutionâ€. This is because plastics have the lowest recycling rate. When they are burned, chemicals that damage the ozone layer are released, causing the most serious pollution. At present, the total annual output of global plastics has exceeded 100 million tons, and plastics used for packaging account for about 30% of the entire plastics market. Plastic packaging belongs to the “short-lived†application range of plastics. After consumption, plastic packaging has two directions: First, it becomes municipal solid waste to enter the waste disposal system; the other destination is to become disposable plastic waste. Because plastics do not degrade themselves, both cause pollution to the environment, especially in the latter.
Green packaging is the need of international environmental protection trends [63]. With the impact of the environmental protection surge, consumers have increasingly higher requirements for the packaging of goods, that is, new packaging products must meet the "3R1D principle, sometimes also called the 4R1D principle. Here, 4R1D or 3R1D refers to reduction of packaging material consumption, refill use of packaging containers (Reuse or Refill), recycling of packaging materials (Recycle), regeneration of energy, and degradability of packaging materials. (Degradable). 3R refers to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. People have gradually shifted their focus on the purchase of affordable and health-oriented products to the desire to purchase environmentally friendly products. Green products have become the first choice for people when shopping, and green product packaging must also meet the green requirements.
Green packaging is one of the important contents of avoiding new trade barriers [64]. With the improvement of people’s environmental awareness, environmental standards and regulations in international trade will become increasingly stringent in the future. Green trade barriers will become the main barriers to international trade. Goods that do not meet the green standards cannot be imported. Green packaging is conducive to breaking through the technical barriers that some new trade protectionists use to set up packaging.
Green packaging is one of the powerful means of international marketing. In the five elements of modern merchandising, namely, Product, Price, Place, Promotion, and Packaging, the role of green packaging in sales is increasing in a world environment that emphasizes environmental protection. Importantly, it is increasingly favored by consumers in all countries. The important content of the 21st century green revolution, the "Green Packaging Revolution" is an important weight for the new round of market competition. To be sure, green packaging products with a strong environmental protection have strong vitality and competitiveness in the international market.
Implementing green packaging is not only the need to protect the environment, but also an important means to enhance the development potential of our packaging industry and improve our competitiveness. It is also one of the important measures for implementing sustainable development.
2 The concept and characteristics of green packaging
With respect to green packaging, there is no unified and widely accepted definition in the academic field. However, there are two points that are widely recognized: First, it is conducive to the regeneration of resources; second, the damage to the ecological environment is minimal. Green packaging refers to packaging that uses environmentally friendly and non-polluting, recyclable or recyclable packaging materials and their products. Green packaging has the following features:
(1) The material is the most provincial, the least waste, and the saving of resources and energy, that is, the green packaging, under the conditions of satisfying protection, convenience, promotion, and providing information functions, should be the least suitable and civilized moderate packaging.
(2) Easy recycling and recycling The repeated use of product packaging and packaging products or the use of recycled waste to produce recycled products, incineration of heat energy, and composting to improve soil, etc., to achieve the purpose of reuse, without polluting the environment, You can make full use of resources.
(3) The packaging material can be self-degraded and the degradation cycle is short in order not to form permanent waste, and the non-recyclable packaging waste must be able to decompose and deteriorate, thereby achieving the purpose of improving the soil. Degradation must also have a short degradation cycle to avoid build up. Currently, all industrial countries in the world attach importance to the development of biodegradable or biodegradable packaging materials.
(4) Packaging materials should be non-toxic and harmless to humans and biological systems. This is mainly to require that packaging materials do not contain toxic elements, halogens, heavy metals, or their contents should be controlled below relevant standards.
(5) The packaging products should not cause environmental pollution during the entire life cycle of the packaged products. That is, the packaged products do not cause environmental pollution from the collection of raw materials, material processing, product manufacturing, use, and waste recycling. No secondary pollution occurs when packaging waste is burned to produce new energy.
Green packaging is one of the key aspects of green products. Vigorously developing green products is the basic requirement for the development of commodity economy. Green products cannot be separated from green packaging. Without green packaging, there is no green product. Green products cannot be called green products without green packaging.