With the enhancement of the environmental awareness of the whole society, "green packaging" has received increasing attention. From a technical point of view, green packaging refers to an environmentally friendly packaging developed from natural plants and related minerals that is harmless to the ecological environment and human health, conducive to recycling, easy to degrade, and sustainable development. European legislation defines three directions for packaging and environmental protection:
——Reduce material from the upstream of production, the less packaging material, the lighter the volume, the better
——For secondary use, such as a bottle, it must be light and can be used many times
——To be able to add value, waste recycling can be used to form new packaging products or the heat generated by burning waste can be used for heating, heating, etc. This article intends to discuss the bamboo packaging. At present, wood has become a common and main natural packaging material. But in our country, the limitations and deficiencies of wood packaging are becoming more and more obvious with the continuous expansion of the packaging industry.
First of all, my country's forest area accounts for only 3.9% of the world's total, the forest stock volume is less than 3% of the world's total stock volume, and the forest coverage rate is 13.92%. 120th and 121st, and the forest coverage rate ranks 142nd. my country imports a large amount of wood and its products every year to meet market demand. However, it is not a long-term solution to solve the shortage of my country's total demand by importing forest products. First, the country's economic strength is not yet strong, and it is difficult to spend tens of billions of foreign exchange to import forest products every year. Second, the international timber market is unpredictable and relies on imports. It will put our country in an extremely passive situation.
Secondly, because some tree species are easily attacked by diseases and insect pests, they are limited by processing conditions and techniques as packaging materials, and the cost in import and export trade is too high. In September 1998, the U.S. government issued a temporary animal and plant quarantine decree, implementing new inspection and quarantine regulations on wood packaging and bedding materials for Chinese goods exported to the United States. It is stipulated that the wooden packaging of my country's goods exported to the United States must be accompanied by a certificate issued by the Chinese official quarantine agency, proving that the wooden packaging has undergone heat treatment, fumigation treatment or anti-corrosion treatment before entering the United States, otherwise the import is prohibited. Later, countries and regions such as Canada, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom and the European Union followed suit, which virtually increased the high cost of fumigation or chemical insecticide treatment for export enterprises in our country. Thirdly, a large amount of logging will undoubtedly have adverse effects on the environment, and at the same time, afforestation and its forestation speed are far from meeting the market's demand for timber. Let me give you an example: According to statistics, an average of 1.2 billion shirts are produced nationwide every year, and 240,000 tons of paper are used for packaging boxes, which is equivalent to cutting down 1.68 million trees the size of a bowl. If you calculate the amount of paper used for packaging all commodities and the trees to be felled, it is undoubtedly an astonishing figure. Therefore, it is necessary to develop and utilize other green packaging materials to replace wood packaging materials as soon as possible. Bamboo is undoubtedly the material of choice. Application of Bamboo in Packaging China is a big country of bamboo, with 35 genera and nearly 400 species of bamboo plants, which have a long history of cultivation and utilization. Regardless of the number of bamboo species resources, the area and accumulation of bamboo forests, or the output and processing level of bamboo forest products, China ranks first in the world's bamboo-producing countries, and has the reputation of "the kingdom of bamboo in the world". In comparison, bamboo has a higher yield rate than trees, a shorter cycle time, is easy to shape, has a wide range of applications, and is much cheaper than wood. The use of bamboo as a packaging material has existed in ancient times, especially in rural areas. With the increasing awareness of environmental protection, bamboo packaging will gradually replace wooden packaging between urban and rural areas and in import and export trade, playing an increasingly important role. Bamboo is used for food and pharmaceutical packaging. Bamboo itself has antibacterial properties, and its antibacterial properties make bamboos free from insects and rot during the growth process, without using any pesticides. Using bamboo materials to produce tableware or food packaging containers not only has no worries about the supply of raw materials, but also has no pollution in the process of production and use of bamboo material tableware or food packaging containers, which is conducive to environmental protection. At the same time, the tableware or food packaging containers made of bamboo materials still retain the unique natural fragrance, simple color and the combination of rigidity and softness unique to bamboo. The application methods mainly include original ecological bamboo tubes (wine, tea, etc.), bamboo woven utensils (fruit plate, fruit box, medicine box), etc. Bamboo is used for everyday packaging. Bamboo's lightweight and easy-to-shape characteristics allow it to fulfill its packaging mission in all aspects of daily life. Not only can it be reused, but also in the packaging design, according to the different characteristics of the packaging object, it can be decorated with engraving, burning, painting, weaving, etc., to improve the cultural taste of the packaging, and at the same time make the packaging both protective and aesthetic, and collectible. function. The application method is mainly bamboo weaving (sheet, block, silk), such as various boxes, cages, vegetable baskets, mats for storage and various packaging gift boxes. Bamboo is used for shipping packaging. As early as the late 1970s, Sichuan Province of my country had "replaced wood with bamboo" to package and transport several tons of machinery. The rise and development of bamboo plywood has opened up a new way of vitality for the use of bamboo. It has the characteristics of wear resistance, corrosion resistance, insect resistance, high strength and good toughness, and its performance is much better than other wood-based panels. Bamboo is light in weight but surprisingly hard in texture. According to the measurement, the shrinkage of bamboo is very small, but the elasticity and toughness are very high, the tensile strength along the grain reaches 170MPa, and the compressive strength along the grain reaches 80MPa. Especially rigid bamboo, its tensile strength along the grain reaches 280MPa, which is almost half that of ordinary steel. However, if the tensile strength is calculated by unit mass, the tensile strength of bamboo is 2.5 times that of steel. It is not difficult to see from this that bamboo plywood is used to replace wooden boards as transportation packaging materials.
Post time: Apr-06-2023
