Abstract: Based on the theory of sustainable development, this paper studies and analyzes the problems of the development and environmental protection of packaging industry in China. First of all, starting from the status quo of the development of China's packaging industry, the progress of the society and the development of the economy cannot be separated from the packaging. The packaging industry plays an important role in the national economy. Then it analyzes the problems faced by the current packaging industry and environmental protection, and points out that packaging and the environment have two aspects: they are interdependent and interact with each other, and are the unity of contradictions. In the end, a preliminary analysis of the path of harmonious development between packaging and environmental protection is carried out, and it is proposed that green packaging is the only way for the harmonious development of the packaging industry and environmental protection.
Keywords: packaging industry environmental protection green packaging
I. Development Status of China's Packaging Industry
The most promising Chinese packaging market The Chinese packaging industry has experienced a history of development from scratch and from small to large for more than 20 years. It has been growing rapidly at an annual growth rate of over 18%, in one fell swoop from the 1980s. The last one of the 40 major industries in the initial national economy jumped to the 15th place now. The proportion of the total output value of the packaging industry in total social output has risen from 0.4% in the early 1980s to the present 2.3%. It has played an increasingly important role in meeting and serving the national economic development, ensuring effective supply, increasing foreign exchange through exports, reducing logistic losses, improving the status of domestic and foreign commodity packaging, protecting commodities, beautifying and enriching people’s living standards. A relatively complete modern packaging industry system has formed and has become an important part of the national economy.
At present, China's production of corrugated packaging products, composite flexible packaging, metal barrels, containers, plastic woven bags and other major production has been among the world's forefront. China's packaging industry has basically formed an industrial system with paper, plastics, metal, glass, printing, and machinery as the main components, with certain modern technology and equipment and relatively complete categories.
In 2003, the total output value of China's packaging industry has exceeded 270 billion yuan. Among them, the paper packaging industry output value of 86.64 billion yuan, the plastic packaging industry output value of 76.42 billion yuan, the metal packaging industry output value of 20.76 billion yuan, the glass packaging industry output value of 7.983 billion yuan, packaging and printing industry output value of 8.02 billion yuan. At present, China has about 5,000 paper packaging companies, more than 8,000 plastic packaging companies, 1,500 metal packaging companies, and 4,000 food and packaging machinery companies. Packaging companies have grown from about 2,500 in 1980 to more than 11,000 in size in 2003. In 2003, the packaging industry took on 4.58 trillion yuan worth of retail sales of domestic consumer goods and 443.8 billion US dollars worth of export goods, which basically met the needs of the national economy.
Since the reform and opening up, the exchanges and cooperation between China and the world packaging industry have been further strengthened. A large number of world-renowned packaging companies have come to invest and set up factories in China. At the same time, the Chinese packaging industry adheres to the path of internationalization, actively introduces and digests advanced foreign packaging technologies and equipment, accelerates extensive exchanges, learning and cooperation with the world packaging enterprise groups, and emerges a large number of large-scale products that are close to international scale and level. Packaging enterprise groups, the export volume of packaging materials increased year by year, China's packaging machinery products have begun to enter the international market. Asian Packaging Center settled in Hangzhou, China; World Packaging Organization decided that the 2006 World Packaging Conference will be held in China.
The efforts made by the Chinese packaging industry for more than two decades have made positive contributions to the sustained and rapid development of the national economy. They have also accumulated experience for the future growth of the packaging industry and laid a solid foundation. First, thanks to technological progress, Nearly 40% of packaging companies have carried out technological transformations and expansions; second, benefiting from the development of supporting key and key enterprises and non-public economies, the number of large-scale enterprises has grown to more than 20,000 and created more than 3 million jobs. Third, thanks to reform and opening up, the number of foreign-invested enterprises has increased, and a large number of advanced foreign technologies and equipment have been continuously introduced.
However, we must also be soberly aware that most packaging companies in China are small and have a low level of industrial concentration. There are very few packaging companies in the world, and most packaging companies are still small and medium sized processing plants. China's packaging industry is under the influence and containment of foreign multinational companies. The main packaging equipment and raw and auxiliary materials are also heavily dependent on imports. Packaging machinery has grown slowly. In 2003, the total industrial output value was only 15.1 billion yuan, accounting for 5.6% of the total output value of the packaging industry. As one of the major products in the packaging industry, packaging machinery should occupy an important position in the development of the packaging industry in China. However, due to the impact of the country's overall economic and technological strength, the development of packaging machinery has been at a low level; the higher cost of packaging products has a greater impact on the competitiveness of commodities. Many commodity packaging costs often reach 30-70% of the cost of goods, and some packaging costs even greatly exceed the value of the commodity itself; the packaging industry as a supporting industry, the proportion of output value is relatively high; many companies still do not get rid of high input, high consumption, high pollution Extensive operating conditions with low output; The development of the packaging industry in various regions of the country is unbalanced, and the transportation radius of production, supply, and sales in the packaging industry is excessive, and waste is also large, and it does not meet the requirements for the coordinated development of the east, west, south, and north; and the lack of one. A large number of modernized packaging entrepreneurs, scientific management and technical talents have poor technological innovation capabilities and lack a large number of skilled workers. The macro-control of packaging production needs to be strengthened urgently, and regulations related to packaging are seriously inadequate. We must take strong countermeasures to build a modern packaging industry with high technological content, good economic returns, low resource consumption, low environmental pollution, and full utilization of human resources as soon as possible. The "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Issues Concerning the Improvement of the Socialist Market Economic System" passed by the "16th National Congress of the Communist Party" and the "3rd Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee" pointed out the direction and goals for the development of the packaging industry in China, and proposed clear solutions. And methods.
China's packaging industry has a weak foundation and started late. It used to be a weak link in the national economy. Therefore, when accelerating development, it has neglected a very important issue - the impact of packaging waste on the environment, resulting in environmental pollution. . For example, the most typical "white pollution" problem has caused the attention of the whole society and the government's great attention. Packaging waste has become an obstacle to the healthy development of China's packaging industry. Although China's packaging industry has made great progress for 20 years, packaging in China is still an emerging industry, and there are still many deficiencies, especially after China's accession to the WTO, facing the fierce globalization of the world economy. In terms of competition, our packaging industry is faced with both opportunities and challenges.
Second, the impact of the packaging industry on environmental protection
(I) Related Background Since the industrial revolution began more than 200 years ago, mankind's demand from nature has shifted from relying on the gift of nature to actively requesting it from nature. The capacity and scale of demand have increased dramatically, and the volume of requests has increased exponentially. Renewable natural resources are drastically reduced and many resources will be completely depleted within a few decades. The consumption of resources and waste exceeds the earth's ability to regenerate and purify itself, and the living environment will be severely damaged. After the painful reflection, comprehensive review and review of human development on its path, the first United Nations Conference on Human Environment in 1972 passed the "Declaration of the Human Environment." In 1987, the United Nations Commission on Environment and Development published the "Our Common Future" document. At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992, countries reached a worldwide consensus on the human development path and adopted the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (21st Century Agenda), proposing sustainable development. The strategy is to meet the needs of contemporary people without compromising the needs of human offspring and satisfying human needs without compromising the needs of other species. The overall requirements are:
(1) A harmonious lifestyle between man and nature.
(2) To formulate policies for sustainable development, consider the environment and development as a whole when formulating social and economic development plans and laws and policies.
(3) Industrial development that does not harm the environment and moderate consumption scale.
(4) The priority of management objectives should reflect the application to the environment and development.
(5) Strengthen the protection and management of resources for development.
These requirements have become the most basic ideological guidelines and strategies for human beings to guide their actions, which indicates that the world should strive to seek sustainable development and pursue the harmony between man and nature. Immediately afterwards, a green wave centered on the protection of the ecological environment was set off throughout the world. The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, and a series of written conventions and protocols And laws and regulations have become the basis for countries to implement domestic environmental protection legislation.
As an important part of the modern industrial chain, it is obvious that packaging must also develop in accordance with the strategy set out in the above-mentioned international conventions, from which the concept of “Green Package†is derived. “Green Packaging†has been called “Environmental Friendly Package†or “Ecological Pack-age.†Many developed countries have successively established a number of laws and regulations related to green packaging. The International Organization for Standardization in 1997 to 2000 In just 4 years of the year, 24 ISO/CD14000 environmental management standards have been issued, and the criteria and conditions for human environmental protection have been rigorously, rigorously, systematically and scientifically regulated, which has effectively promoted the healthy development of green projects worldwide. The green label of products, which has been packaged, first appeared in Europe and became one of the important contents of non-tariff barriers and technical barriers in international trade.
China's high-speed economic development is facing social issues such as environmental pollution that cannot be ignored:
(1) The urban atmospheric pollution is quite serious. According to surveys in 73 cities, cities that exceed the quota have already accounted for about 70%.
(2) At present, the shortage of water resources and water pollution in China are becoming more and more serious. There are more than 300 cities in the country that lack water, and the annual output value of industrial output value is more than 120 billion yuan due to insufficient water supply. Of the seven major water systems in the country, 40%-70% of the water bodies of the Songhua River, Liaohe River, Huaihe River, Haihe River, and Yellow River have already fallen to the worst four-category and five-category standards.
(3) Urban road noise remained high for 14 years, and 47% of urban areas in China were polluted by noise.
(4) Garbage pollution has become a serious topic at the end of the last century. According to statistics from related departments, the annual production of municipal solid waste is more than 100 million tons. The country’s annual garbage dump volume has reached more than 6 billion tons and covers an area of ​​more than 660,000 acres. The ecological environment has been very serious. To this end, the central government promptly put forward the guiding ideology of the scientific concept of development. Now it has attracted the attention of the government and society as a whole. In recent years, efforts have been made to strengthen macroeconomic regulation and control so that China’s national economy has begun to follow the path of sound development.
(II) Inundation of bad packaging
In recent years, the luxury of merchandise packaging has intensified. In the 1980s, due to the undeveloped packaging industry, the price reductions caused by the poor appearance of China’s export products amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Later, after the merchants discovered that there was “gold†in the packaging, the packaging industry developed rapidly. After 15 percent of the annual growth rate without any rules, it had become a devil in recent years.
Taking moon cakes as an example, people in the industry have revealed that moon cakes currently cost only 15% of the total cost of fillings, and they have to account for 30% or more of packaging, and the annual packaging investment is increasing. According to authoritative data, in the Mid-Autumn Festival of 2004, the moon cake industry spent only nearly RMB 3 billion on packaging. Not only moon cakes, tonics, medicines, even some small commodities are caught in "