Sustainable Development of Packaging Materials Selection (I)

In addition to protecting and beautifying goods and making them easier to transport and carry, packaging can also play a role in recommending demos, promoting goods, and promoting sales. With the improvement of people's living standards, the requirements for the packaging of goods are getting higher and higher. It is not only required that the goods are packaged beautifully, economically, practically, but also in conformity with the requirements of environmental protection. As a result, the packaging industry has rapidly emerged. According to a research report of the World Packaging Organization, the world packaging market is huge, with an annual production value of about 500 billion US dollars, and it ranks among the world's top 10 industrialists. Although China's packaging industry is still in the early stages of development, the total output value of the packaging industry in China has reached 180 billion in 1998, and has grown at a rate higher than the industrial average. The rapid growth and growth of the packaging industry has resulted in a wide range of development of packaging materials. Many materials such as paper, plastic, metal and glass are widely used in various packaging. However, while packaging brings convenience and benefits to people, it also causes serious damage to the environment in which human beings live. On the one hand, packaging consumes a lot of resources and energy. On the other hand, increasing packaging waste has become the only human The fourth largest source of pollution in water pollution, marine lake pollution and air pollution. Based on the sustainable development strategy, it is of great significance to develop green packaging materials and widely use green packaging.
The concept of sustainable development What is "sustainable development"? In the report entitled “Our Common Future” adopted at the 42nd United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in 1987, it is stated in this article: Sustainable development is “to satisfy contemporary needs without harming the needs of future generations to meet their needs”. The basic meaning of the development of the "capacity" is to ensure that human society has long-term and sustainable development capabilities.
With the continuous growth of human society's production and consumption, human beings are using advanced science and technology to acquire more material civilizations from nature; at the same time, they are also faced with new threats of survival resulting from the destruction of the natural world, material civilization, and limited resources of the earth. The contradiction between pollution, energy and environmental pollution and destruction has become increasingly acute. Because of this, the concept of sustainable development has been increasingly accepted by governments and people of all countries, and has penetrated into the various fields of natural science and social science from a single ecological field, and has gradually become a development model widely accepted and pursued by all mankind. . People have realized that human society should be harmoniously coordinated with the natural world and follow the path of sustainable development before it is in the long-term interest of mankind. Protecting the environment, saving resources and energy is the key to achieving sustainable development.
The relationship between packaging and environmental packaging and the environment is extremely close. Packaging not only consumes a lot of resources and energy, but also waste becomes a source of pollution to the environment. According to related statistics, the total amount of waste discarded each year in the world is close to 10 billion tons, of which packaging waste accounts for about 1/3. If calculated by volume, packaging waste accounts for 1/2 of the total waste volume. Particularly serious is that a considerable part of the current packaging is made of non-degradable materials. They are left in the environment for a long time and cause serious pollution to the environment, which greatly affects the ecological balance and destroys the living environment of human beings. How to reduce and eliminate the harm caused by packaging waste to humans and protect the living environment is a strategic issue facing the packaging industry. Therefore, the right choice of packaging materials, the development of green packaging, and protection of the human living environment have become an important aspect of sustainable development strategies.
The so-called "green packaging" refers to the packaging that produces no pollution to the environment from raw materials to products, can be recycled or recycled, and can be dissolved in nature. To widely promote green packaging, people need to research and develop environmentally friendly (not harmful) packaging materials on the one hand, and on the other hand, require the packaging industry to consciously select and apply environmentally friendly materials in order to facilitate the protection of the environment. , Save resources and energy, better improve human living standards and quality of life, and achieve sustainable development of human civilization. All countries in the world have attached great importance to the development of "green packaging" and have formulated relevant laws and regulations on packaging.
The concept of green material Green material refers to materials that can save resources and energy, protect the ecological environment and the workers themselves, and are easy to recycle and have high recycle utilization rate during the process of production, use, scrap, recycling and recycling. Or material products. The concept of green materials is to ensure the sustainable development of human social civilization in the context of the deteriorating global environment, resources, and energy sources. Materials scientists have put forward materials and materials science from the perspective of environmental materials or environmental awareness materials. Environment Conscious Material).
The main characteristics of green materials include: 1 The advanced nature of the material; 2 The comfort of the use of materials; 3 The green characteristics of the material, or the environmental coordination, including low resource and energy consumption in the production process, low pollution during use or Non-pollution, easy recycling after retirement and high recycling rate. The green characteristic is the fundamental characteristic of the green material distinguishing itself from traditional materials. It fully considers the coordination between the research, application, development and environmental protection, resources, and energy of the material. The research and application of green materials is an important turning point in the history of materials development, and has a significant impact on the implementation of sustainable development strategies. Although the current research work is mainly confined to the recovery and reuse of materials, the reduction of "three wastes" of materials technology and processes, alternative materials to reduce environmental pollution, environmental purification materials, degradable materials, etc., but with environmental awareness To strengthen, when considering and applying materials, it is an inevitable trend to consider environmental factors.
For the packaging industry, green materials are the basis for manufacturing green packaging. The key to developing green packaging is to research, develop and manufacture green, degradable packaging materials that are required for "green packaging." Industrialized countries all attach great importance to the research of green packaging materials and have developed a number of practical green packaging materials. For example, the United States, Japan, Britain, Germany and other countries have all developed biodegradable plastics. This material has the green characteristics of self-decomposing and disappearing after being discarded, and has no pollution to the environment. It is considered as the most promising green packaging material. (To be continued)