The Scientific Development Concept of Green Packaging Design IV

4. Recycling

Packaging recycling is of great significance for saving energy and reducing pollution to the environment. Table 1 shows the impact data for the recovery of the three packaging containers.

Therefore, all countries have set specific targets for increasing packaging recycling rate year by year. For example, the European Union requires that the recycling rate of packaging wastes be 50%-65% by weight, and the recycling rate should be 25%-40%. The recovery rates required by Germany are 80% for glass, 80% for tinplate, 80% for aluminum, 80% for cardboard, 80% for paper, 80% for plastic, and 80% for composites. Countries that require the reuse of packaging materials and regeneration rates to reach certain targets: 85% in France, 58% in the UK, 50% in Denmark, 60% in the Netherlands, - 25% in the United States - 60% in the United States, 80% in Austria, and 40% in Belgium %. China's packaging recycling has very distinct Chinese characteristics. Because a large number of rural surplus labor forces are flooding into cities, any package that a department is willing to purchase at a high price can basically be recycled. For example, paper products, polyester bottles, beer bottles, and two-piece cans have very high recovery rates. However, other recycling packages with lower prices have lower recovery rates. Table 2 shows the production of paper products and the recovery of waste paper in various countries at the end of the last century. Table 3 shows the data of plastic recycling and processing in Europe, the United States, Japan, and China at the end of the last century. Table 4 shows the recycling data of glass bottles from various countries at the end of the last century. At the end of the last century, the recovery rate of two-piece cans in Japan reached 43.1%, and that in the United States was 62.4%. The regeneration rate of steel drums in various countries ranges from 20% to 46%.

From the above data, we can see that there is still a certain gap between China and foreign advanced countries in the issue of packaging recycling. The current issues needing attention are:

(1) Should supermarkets give plastic bags to consumers? Because plastic bags are difficult to recycle, they have become the main problem of white pollution and landscape pollution. So some experts suggest that supermarkets should not prepare plastic bags for consumers, instead of using fiber bags that can be used multiple times. Some proposals levied collection fees on plastic bags and encouraged consumers to bring their own bags to reduce the amount of plastic bags discarded. At present, the primary problem is that there are a large number of plastic bags made of waste plastics in the farmers' market, and supervision must be strengthened. The second is how to establish a mechanism to encourage the recycling of plastic bags. A certain number of return charges for plastic bag producers can be considered, together with government subsidies, so that recyclers have enthusiasm. Research and development of equipment that separates plastics from waste, and established specialized companies to deal with the acquisition of waste plastic bags to form a circular economy. (to be continued)