Packaging Waste Environment and Policy (Chinese)

The view that packaging will inevitably bring about resource consumption and environmental pollution is incomplete. Although manufacturing packaging does require the consumption of resources and energy, resulting in a lot of waste, but on the other hand, due to the protective effect of packaging on products, reducing the economic loss of products, food spoilage, in fact, also avoided a large part The generation of garbage. It should be said that the huge amount of packaging is determined by the nature of the packaging itself. Due to the variety and variety of products, the demand for packaging is great. Packaging can protect the goods and promote sales. It is obvious that the novel and exquisite packaging brings convenience and enjoyment to people's lives, and even improves the quality of life. Therefore, it must be acknowledged that the existence of packaging is of great significance in protecting the environment and promoting economic development.
However, the packaging environment still exists and is outstanding in some aspects. The main problem lies in the appropriate degree of packaging and the management of packaging waste that is harmful to the environment. First of all, excessive packaging should be eliminated. It not only seriously wastes resources and pollutes the environment, but also deceives consumers to a certain extent, and seeks unfair income at the expense of the environment and the expense of consumers. Second, the use of packaging materials with greater environmental hazards should be avoided. Because the packaging has the characteristics of a large number of short products and a short life span, if the packaging materials are not carefully selected, a large amount of packaging waste will rapidly accumulate, which will have a serious impact on the environment. The key to solving the problem is how to determine whether the packaging is excessive, and how to determine whether the packaging material has a greater impact on the environment. The answer to these questions is not easy, and the life cycle assessment method is needed to make a scientific and comprehensive analysis.
III. LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF THE PACKAGING The application of the life cycle analysis method in the packaging field is typical. It adopts a phased synthesis of the energy consumption at each stage of the entire packaging process, the amount of waste or harmful substances released into the environment. Evaluation to fully determine the environmental impact of packaging. Through the life cycle analysis method, it is possible to effectively determine whether the packaging is appropriate or not, and to identify packages that are harmful to the environment in order to make effective management decisions.
Many studies using life-cycle assessment methods have shown that merely paying too much attention to the environmental impact of packaging during the obsolescence phase is not necessarily environmentally and economically effective. For example, people have studied the environmental impact of plastic and paperboard packaging and compared the effects of burning, landfilling, and recycling the waste. The results show that the incineration disposal of plastic packaging is better than recycling, and recycling is better than landfilling; and the incineration of cardboard packaging is better than landfill, and landfill is better than recycling. For another example, a study on cardboard packaging shows that for certain paper packages, recycling seems to be superior to incineration; for another type of paper package, the situation is the opposite. For another example, many comparative studies on disposable and non-disposable packaging have demonstrated that the environmental impact of disposable packaging is smaller than that of non-disposable packaging when considering practical operating conditions. There are many examples of such research. Although they are all based on the specific conclusions of a certain research condition, they cannot be summarized, but they can show that the environmental impact of packaging is not only from a certain stage, but also from a certain aspect. Judgment, therefore, the corresponding management policy can not rely on subjective imagination to make decisions. Obviously, according to the specific situation, it is very important to analyze and evaluate the whole process of packaging.
An important conclusion of the application of LCA idea to packaging waste management is that packaging waste recycling is only valuable if it is truly to save resources, reduce energy consumption, and bring the least environmental pollution. . In other words, it is also conditional to choose the method of recycling to deal with packaging waste, blindly pursuing the recycling rate of packaging waste is not necessarily the most reasonable solution, and sometimes the environmental impact or resource consumption caused by the recycling process may be greater than the waste of packaging. The direct processing of things. The key to the problem lies in the analysis of the environmental economic benefits of the recycling process of packaging waste, and the comparison with the direct disposal of packaging waste to determine whether the recycling of packaging waste is meaningful. Life cycle assessment is an effective method to provide this analysis, and can provide a basis for the formulation and selection of packaging waste management policies. Although in practice, the life cycle assessment study is complex, time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the evaluation method itself is not mature, it represents a direction and takes a scientific and objective understanding of the entire packaging process and the environmental impact of various options. Attitudes, whether for the environment or long-term economic interests, are more secure than relying on assumptions or looking at problems split. Life cycle assessment is still developing. It cannot help answer all questions and make all decisions, but it is indeed a comprehensive and effective way of thinking.
IV. Recommendations on China's Packaging Waste Management Policy China's packaging industry has developed rapidly, and the number of packaging waste has continued to rise. Compared with developed countries, China's packaging has the following characteristics: First, the amount of packaging used and its amount of waste are still lower than in developed countries, which is mainly due to the gap in economic development levels and different living habits and other reasons. Secondly, major packaging wastes such as paperboard and PET bottles in China's urban domestic waste have a high recovery rate due to high recycling value. Therefore, the amount of recyclable packaging waste in garbage is small, which further improves the recovery of packaging waste. There is a certain degree of difficulty in using and reusing the level. Thirdly, the development level of China's packaging industry is still unbalanced. There are only a few large-scale enterprises with advanced technologies and well-managed enterprises. The management level of many small-scale enterprises is not high, and the level of development of enterprises is uneven. The formulation of packaging waste management policies and Implementation is unfavorable. In view of this, this paper proposes the following recommendations for China's packaging waste management policy: (to be continued)