Green Packaging Design Concept of Scientific Development II

2. Connotation

Green packaging should be: no harm to the ecological environment and human health, recycling, reuse and recycling, can promote the sustainable development of the national economy packaging. In other words, the whole process of packaging products from raw material selection, product manufacturing, use, recycling and disposal should meet the "clean production" requirements for ecological and environmental protection. It includes such contents as conservation of resources, energy, reduction, avoidance of waste generation, easy recycling, recycling, incineration or degradation, and other ecological and environmental protection requirements.

Some scholars proceed from the concept of comprehensive packaging, according to a multidisciplinary approach to the overall analysis of the packaging, the definition of green packaging: human beings to produce the minimum cost of all human packaging products in demand.

Former President of the World Packaging Organization, Townsend, put forward the "3R" principle of green packaging, namely, reduce, reuse (reuse, recycling). Some scholars have suggested that the use of the used goods can be unified. Reclaim, promote the rejection of products without environmental protection concept (Refuse), try to use the connotation of degradable or degradable packaging materials, so the connotation of green packaging becomes “5R+1D”.

The content of green packaging With the advancement of science and technology, the development of packaging will also have new connotations. For example, the term degradable plastics is derived from the special concept of plastic polymer structures, and it is now more popular to promote the use of more "Ecoplatics". Because the traditional sustainable development of oil-based plastics is hampered by the supply of oil, the economic development has deepened the dependence on oil, and the development of the economy has led to more waste plastics forming white pollution. The environmental protection needs to use fully biodegradable ecological materials and materials. Fully biodegradable ecological material technology is currently improving. In accordance with China’s current economic development and its corresponding rate of oil consumption, China’s oil storage will be exhausted in about 16 years. China’s oil supply will increasingly depend on imports, and it has now become the second largest oil importing country, turbulent. The situation in the Middle East has seriously affected the supply of oil. At present, the annual consumption of plastics in China has exceeded 25 million tons, of which packaging accounts for about 6 million tons, and the proportion in the garbage is increasing day by day and it is difficult to handle. Even if half of the plastics are required to be completely degraded, the annual demand will reach 1,250 tons, while in China, less than 100,000 tons of fully degradable ecological plastics are used as raw materials, and the better-performing polylactic acid ecological plastic has not yet been industrialized. The gap is big. Polylactic acid is currently recognized as an ecological plastic that can replace traditional plastics such as PE to a considerable extent, because it can form the ecological cycle of ecoplastics shown in the ecological cycle of cornstarch ecoplastics in Figure 1. However, there are still some limitations in the cost and packaging applications of polylactic acid and other ecological plastics.

Industrial biotechnology will soon become the third wave of development of biotechnology in the world. It is setting off a new revolution in industrial technology on a global scale. It has become the focus of attention and input of governments and industry circles in various countries. The production mode of the chemical industry has begun to shift to a new generation of material processing model that uses bio-renewable resources as raw materials, energy, environmental friendly, and process efficiency. Its core technology is industrial biotechnology. The European Biotechnology Alliance estimates that by 2010, industrial biotech products such as microbial renewable materials will occupy 10% to 20% of the European chemical market. The US National Research Council predicts that by 2020, 50% of organic chemicals and materials will be produced from biomass feedstocks. The United States Department of Agricultural Resources initiated the "Biomass Research and Development-Innovative or Interdisciplinary Technology for the Conversion of Biomass into Fuels and Compounds" plan in 2001. Japan launched a new energy research project called "New Sunshine Project" to study the efficient transformation and utilization of plant biomass. Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan announced in 2003 that "the bio-green industry is an important pillar for the company's future operations," and invested 2.3 billion yen to build a 1,000-ton polylactic acid pilot plant. The development of industrial biotechnology in our country has superior conditions. China's annual total solar radiation is between 3.3x106 and 8.4x106kJ/m2. Biodiversity resources are another important resource advantage in our country. China has a relatively strong base of traditional industrial biotechnology industries. The output of major products such as antibiotics, vitamins, amino acids and organic acids accounts for the top three in the world, and the potential for modern technological transformation is relatively large. China's research capabilities in the areas of genome and systems biology have reached the international advanced level, laying an important foundation for the development of industrial biotechnology in China.

Therefore, we believe that the connotation of green packaging should be "5R+1E", that is, when selecting packaging materials, it should try to avoid or reduce the reduction (Reduction); the used product packaging should be reclaimed (Reclaim); Reuse of recycled packaging; Recycling or recycling of packaging waste into useful materials (Recycle); Promotion of refuse of products without environmental protection concept; Ecological packaging materials ).

To develop the green packaging industry, we must research and solve relevant technologies, standards, policies, regulations, and other issues in accordance with the viewpoint of systems science, covering green packaging design, material selection, processing and manufacturing, circulation management, application promotion, recycling processing, and evaluation systems. , standard signs, policies and regulations, etc.

(to be continued)