On Overpacking and Countermeasures of China's Products(1)

Abstract: There is a close and complex connection between resources, environment and sustainable development. In response to China's packaging waste has caused serious environmental pollution. The article emphasizes that product packaging will take the road of sustainable development, speed up the development of green packaging ideas, and further propose some measures for the pollution of packaging waste.

Keywords: packaging waste green packaging green consumption sustainable development

With the rapid development of society and science and technology, the modern economy requires the integration of production and business operations with environmental protection, emphasizing that social and economic development must be coordinated with the environment; more and more people are aware of the great significance of environmental quality for human survival. The call for the protection of the earth's environment and conservation of resources is increasing. People's consumer demand is also continuously progressing from a low level to a high level. In 2001, when the Chinese people entered the new century, Chinese consumers ushered in the year-round theme of the Green Consumption Year. Pay attention to environmental protection, save resources and energy, and pay attention to waste disposal that does not cause environmental pollution during the consumption process.

I. Serious environmental pollution in China's packaging waste

At one time people simply pursued economic development, resulting in serious damage to the country’s environmental conditions. In 2000, China's forest coverage rate reached 16.55%. However, per capita forest reserves accounted for only 1/8 of the world's per capita reserves, and the total amount of soil and water loss topsoil reached 5 billion tons. About 170 million people are affected by desertification. The deterioration of the environment has been particularly prominent in the modern urbanization process in China. The cities whose atmospheric environment passes quotas quotas account for about 70% of the total. Water quality continues to deteriorate, and the scarcity of water resources becomes increasingly serious. The problem of municipal solid waste is serious. The most important and most common hazard is packaging waste. This has become a headache for municipal management. According to survey statistics, 2/3 of the country’s cities are surrounded by garbage. By the end of 1997, the accumulated amount of urban garbage has reached 6 billion tons and covers an area of ​​750,000 mu. China’s current per capita arable land area is less than 2 mu. It is at the level of 4.57 mu per capita in the world.

In 1999, Shanghai Municipality transported 4.99 million tons of garbage, an increase of 6.3% over 19981. According to the analysis of the components of Shanghai municipal solid waste, the organic content is about 67%, the available resources such as plastics are about 28%, the inorganic ingredients complying with sanitary landfill are only 15%, 2 various metal cans, non-degradable packaging About 20% of the material, Shanghai's current disposal capacity for landfill has been overwhelmed. Another example is Beijing. After investigation, the daily production of domestic garbage in Beijing is 1.2 tons, of which the content of plastic plastic packaging, plastic bags and other waste plastics is about 3%. 3 The natural decomposition of plastic packaging made of polyolefin materials For 200 years.

While China has emerged as a city surrounding garbage, it also shows a tendency to gradually spread to the countryside. The “village-level waste” phenomenon in about 30,000 villages in the Yangtze River Delta has become increasingly serious, affecting people’s health and well-being.

Many companies in the packaging industry in China once did not hesitate to pay more for pollution. In exchange for considerable profits, many companies over-packaged their products for the purpose of pursuing the greatest economic benefits. According to statistics from related departments, at present, China produces about 800 million boxed shirts, and 800 million sets of packaging cartons require 240,000 tons of paper. If the number of breast diameters is 10 centimeters, then each of these trees can only produce One ton of paper, the production of 240,000 tons of paper requires 1.68 million trees 4. Through a specific set of data, we can see how simple packaging can help maintain the rational use of natural resource base. In the selection of product packaging materials, manufacturers also rarely consider the recycling and recycling of packaging waste, which not only increases the output of waste, but also causes waste of resources. Nowadays, environmental issues have clearly hampered economic development. The issue of waste has been listed as one of the top ten environmental issues in the world. Xie Zhenhua, director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, pointed out on the topic of “How China Should Go in the 21st Century”: During the tenth five-year period, China’s population will continue to increase, industrialization and urbanization will accelerate, and environmental protection will face even more severe challenges. 5

Second, understand and implement sustainable development strategies from an environmental perspective

The basic concept of sustainable development refers to: “Development that meets the needs of the contemporary people without compromising future generations to meet their needs.” The environment and development are inseparable. The environment is the basis of economic development. Economic development requires the support of the environment and resources. The improvement of environmental quality is closely related to economic development. Human society has entered the 21st century. Sustainable development has become a hot topic and a new strategy for social and economic development. "The idea of ​​sustainable development first came from environmental protection, and it has now become an overall strategy for guiding economic and social development in many countries in the world." 6 Sustainable development has put forward requirements for human beings to minimize resource consumption. In order to make the environment and resources meet the needs of the economic development goals and directly meet the needs of people's lives, we must abandon the extensive production and consumption patterns of “high input, high consumption, and high pollution” and combine economic benefits with ecological benefits. , Reasonably develop and utilize resources, create a relaxed environment for the development of future generations, and include environmental concerns and considerations in development plans and policies. As President Jiang Zemin pointed out: In the process of socialist modernization, we must take implementing the sustainable development strategy as a major event.

In order not to let resources shortage environmental pollution, do a good job of recycling and comprehensive utilization of a variety of packaging waste, we must speed up the development of green product packaging. “Green packaging” refers to packaging that can be recycled without causing any pollution to the environment. Its meaning is the recycling of resources and the protection of the ecological environment. The meaning of green is to protect the ecological environment of the earth and promote the harmonious relationship between man and nature, social economy and ecological environment. Green packaging is harmless to the ecological environment and human health, saves resources and energy, avoids waste generation, is easy to recycle, reuses, recycles, and can be burned or degraded. That is to say, it complies with the “3R” that is required by the developed countries in the world. And "1D" (Reduce reduction, Reuse reuse, Recycle recycling and Degradable degradable) principle, emphasizing the balance between ecological requirements and economic requirements.

With the rapid development of science and technology and people’s increasing attention to environmental protection, product packaging research work has been fruitful in all countries of the world: Japan has used waste paper to make renewable packaging containers; the United States has invented strawberry-based enveloping packaging materials; European traditional wine packaging It also develops to environmental protection. Under the unremitting efforts of our country's scientific research personnel, China has made major breakthroughs in the field of product packaging materials: it has developed a biodegradable packaging bag that is easy to handle and meets the requirements of environmental protection; corn protein packaging film can be used for coatings with oily foods; Gel-coated wrappers are used for food packaging that requires a certain temperature and moisture, as well as many green packagings such as corn foam catering containers and corn starch composite packaging films. In June 2000, China's "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" for the packaging of electronic information products was introduced. "Planning" is aimed at electronic information products, and foam cushions used in a large number of foamed plastic materials for household appliance packaging promote and promote pulp molding, plant fibers, etc. Green packaging material. The above are all measures that have fully demonstrated that China's product packaging actively integrates with the international market.

Third, research on the pollution of packaging waste in China

The UN Environment Group had discussed issues that were mandated by the Council for product packaging and marking. At the beginning of the 21st century, China’s imminent accession to the WTO shows that China’s foreign trade is fully integrated with the world economy. With the acceleration of the process of world economic integration, in order to improve the market-oriented competitiveness of our products and achieve win-win results for both economic and environmental benefits, the government must strengthen the control of environmental pollution, establish consumer awareness of environmental protection, and increase consumer awareness. With regard to the quality of ecological consumption, enterprises must produce and develop product packaging that produces the lowest environmental impact throughout the entire life cycle, and thus have an advantage in international trade.