Analysis of Environmental Problems and Management Policies of Packaging Wastes

Packaging waste occupies a considerable proportion of urban household waste. According to statistics, the proportion of packaging waste in urban household waste in China is similar to that in developed countries, and the increasing trend is increasingly evident. However, does the production of large amounts of packaging waste only mean severe waste of resources and environmental pollution? Many countries implement specialized management of packaging waste, and adopt various methods such as economic policies, legislative management, and propaganda and education. However, not all countries regard packaging waste as special waste. In China, is there any special management of packaging? How to objectively view the environmental issues of packaging, and the management of packaging waste should be discussed in depth. Some foreign countries have gained some good experience in the management of packaging waste, but before considering how to draw lessons from these experiences, they need to make a comprehensive evaluation of foreign packaging management policies. On the other hand, they need to combine China's national conditions and combine Chinese packaging waste. Features in-depth analysis can make the right choice.
First, the connotation and characteristics of packaging Packaging as a part of the product is a tangible addition to the product. The first basic property of packaging is protection. It protects the product from weather, bacteria, transportation, and potential damages that the product can encounter during production and final use. Packaging plays a role in protecting product integrity. Important role. The second basic property of packaging is containment, which prevents product spillage. The third basic property of packaging is identity.
The packaging should also follow the principle of minimizing the impact on the environment when implementing the above basic attributes. It is worth noting that the principle of minimizing the impact on the environment must be based on the premise that the basic functions of the package can be achieved.
The packaging is characterized by a large quantity and short life. Most of the packaging products belong to disposable consumer goods. The period from raw material processing to product processing, consumption, and disposal is generally shorter. The product reaches the hands of consumers and the life of the packaging is also over. This characteristic of packaging is one of the important reasons why packaging waste attracts attention.
The packaging industry provides the society with not the final consumer goods, but is an integral part of the products of other industries. Therefore, packaging companies are inseparable from the product manufacturing industry they package. The development of packaging is also closely related to the development of the product market it packages. On the one hand, product updates and upgrades have stimulated demand for packaging; on the other hand, improvements in packaging have also contributed to product production. Packaging products such as paper, plastic, metal, and glass are the main components of the packaging industry, and packaging waste is also mainly composed of these types of materials. Among them, the paper packaging industry ranks first, and its share has further increased; plastic packaging industry followed. Both of them account for more than half of the packaging industry. The annual output is 10 million tons. Such a large number of packaging products will certainly generate a considerable amount of packaging waste after consumption.
II. Analysis of environmental problems in packaging waste Environmental issues in packaging waste have always drawn attention. Different understanding of this issue has led to differences in the management policies of packaging waste. Environmentalists generally think that the environmental problems of packaging waste are relatively serious. A large number of packaging wastes pollute the environment and waste resources, so they need to be managed and restricted; and general packaging people have different opinions, although the packaging waste is huge, but the packaging It has made great contributions to reducing economic losses and promoting economic development, and it is difficult to explain that packaging waste has a significant impact on the environment. Although these disagreements may come from the consideration of the packaging industry's own interests, the rational aspect is worth discussing. At least it can be seen that the environmental problems of packaging waste are more complicated than people generally think.
It should be recognized that the environmental impact of packaging waste is ranked lower than other environmental problems encountered in the real world. However, packaging waste has attracted special attention because of the following reasons: First, the amount of packaging is huge. The focus on packaging waste originally came from the emergence of waste problems. As the government becomes more and more unsustainable with the ever-increasing disposal costs due to the growth of waste, people will naturally focus on the management of a large amount of packaging waste in the waste. Second, consumers with growing environmental awareness are worried about the large amount of packaging waste that can be found everywhere in the garbage. In particular, “white pollution” and over-packaging phenomena such as plastic bags can be found everywhere. It is even more disgusting. As a result, packaging waste quickly became a target of abuse of resources and pollution of the environment and was widely attacked.
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 suggestions for the management policy of packaging waste in China:
1. At present, China is not suitable for specialized management of packaging wastes. It is the practice of many countries to regulate packaging through separate legislation. However, many countries have not implemented it. For example, the United States is different from the European Union and most of its member states. It does not have a nation-wide special regulations for the recycling of packaging waste. There are only a few state-level regulations concerning packaging management, and there are fewer mandatory regulations and more use of economic policies. According to the current situation in China, this paper believes that it is not appropriate to specifically manage packaging waste for the time being. The main reasons are as follows: First, although there are three levels of reduction, recovery, and reuse of packaging waste management in various countries, the core of legislative management still lies in improving packaging. The level of waste recycling, but China's urban domestic waste in a limited number of packaging waste, high recovery rate, the potential for further recovery is not, the development of policies to promote the recovery of higher levels of cost. Secondly, from the environmental impact of packaging waste, except for certain plastics and synthetic materials that are difficult to degrade in packaging waste, which are harmful to the environment, other types of packaging materials, such as paperboard and glass, are discarded. The impact of the environment is limited, but the cost of separating them from the waste and carrying out specialized transport processing is higher, and management is more difficult. Third, since packaging is an important part of the production of most commodities, it is closely linked with the production, circulation, and consumption of products. Therefore, the management policy for packaging will have many impacts on many actors. The impact is uncertain. For example, the fee and taxation system of packaging has a large influence and should be cautious. In short, it is not in line with China’s reality that the management policies of the developed countries, such as implementing the principle of producer responsibility and determining the recycling target of packaging waste, also have some limitations. Therefore, under the current conditions in China, it is more economical and effective to treat packaging waste as general waste.
2. Focus on the management of excessive packaging and packaging wastes that are harmful to the environment Although China is currently unfit to implement general management of general packaging waste, the management of certain types of packaging waste cannot be ignored. Excessive packaging, hard-to-degrade plastics and other wastes need to be strengthened. In these specific areas, we can learn from the useful experience of foreign countries and adopt legislation.

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