Circular economy and comprehensive treatment of packaging waste (2)

III. Comprehensive management of packaging waste under the concept of circular economy

(1) Establishing a sound legal system for packaging waste under the concept of circular economy

1, China's legislation and status quo of packaging waste legislation

The newly revised "Solid Waste Pollution Prevention Law" is the only nationwide law that clearly stipulates packaging in China. Article 18 of the Act stipulates: “The design and manufacture of products and packaging shall comply with the relevant regulations of the State. The State Council’s administrative department for standardization shall organize and formulate relevant standards in accordance with the state’s economic and technical conditions, the prevention and control of solid waste pollution and the technical requirements of the products. To prevent excessive packaging from causing environmental pollution. Enterprises that produce, sell, or import products and packaging that are legally listed in the compulsory recycling catalog must, in accordance with relevant state regulations, recover the products and packaging." Article 19 of the Act states: " The state encourages scientific research and production units to research, manufacture, and use thin film coverings and commodity packaging that are easily recycled, easily handled, or degradable in the environment, and units and individuals that use agricultural films should take measures such as recycling to prevent or reduce agricultural films. Contamination of the environment.” The Act only states that the State supports the recycling and use of packaging and that products should be environmentally friendly. However, the State does not stipulate how the State supports it, resulting in the difficulty of enterprises adopting green packaging in obtaining strong support from the country. Support, which affects the green The promotion and expansion of color packaging. On the other hand, although companies have the obligation to adopt packaging materials that are easy to recycle, easy to handle, or can be destroyed in the environment, they do not provide corresponding legal responsibilities, so that companies that do not use green packaging do not receive due sanctions. Companies that have adopted green packaging have also received no corresponding compensation, resulting in a de facto injustice. Moreover, the circulation, disposal, and recycling of packaging materials are rather complicated and cannot be solved simply by the word “should”. It involves a series of circulation links, the reduction of waste, the recovery of the system, and the operation of the organization. It has a direct bearing on the vital interests of market players and cannot be solved by relying solely on the environmental awareness and ethics of citizens and enterprises. The legal provisions in this area are almost zero. Therefore, the existing "Solid Waste Pollution Prevention and Control Law" is very weak in regulating circulation, disposal and recycling of packaging.

2. Improvement of the legislative system of packaging waste in China

In view of the fact that the current Solid Waste Pollution Prevention and Control Act does not provide sufficient control over packaging waste, the existing "Solid Waste Pollution Prevention and Control Law" should be amended to meet the requirements of the circular economy and gradually transition to the comprehensive "Waste Management Law." A comprehensive "Waste Management Law" should include the following: (1) The design, production, and materials of the packaging should ensure that the safety and health of the goods and users, and the use of the goods are not affected. Reducing the volume and weight of packaging, and setting the packaging quota; when designing, producing, and selling packaging, it must be considered that the packaging must be reused and recycled to reduce the environmental pollution caused by packaging waste; in the use of packaging materials , to contain no harmful ingredients to the environment and human health. 2 The provisions concerning the packaging should be transported and used for many times. The packaging products must have the characteristics and quality that can be transported and used for many times; during the process of being reused, the packaging should be required to ensure the health and safety of the workers. Processing. 3 Recycling regulations for packaging Reuse by recycling. The components and quality of the packaging materials that can be recycled and reused must meet certain requirements; packaging materials are used for energy incineration and utilization. Packaging waste that cannot be reused must be incinerated and should have a minimum energy value. For composting, the packaging waste must be sufficiently degraded for composting so that it can be decomposed and suitable for chemical processing. Composting in farmland; after physical, chemical, combustion, and bio-technology processing, most of the matter can be decomposed into CO2, H2O, etc., and the environment is truly degradable. 4 Implement the "product liability" principle of producers, importers, and sellers. "Product liability" means that the producer, importer, and seller of the product must be responsible for the "life cycle of the product". Therefore, it must be responsible for the separation, recycling, recycling, and disposal of packaging waste. cost.

(B) Use of economic incentives to promote the recycling of packaging waste

1. Implement the package charge management system
Different packing costs should be charged according to the package volume (weight) and the material's easy recycling. This can stimulate companies to take measures to adopt the minimum packaging design, reduce the amount of packaging waste generated; development of social and environmental harmless product packaging; is conducive to raising funds, improve the level of treatment, reduce packaging waste pollution. The introduction of packaging tax can enable enterprises to shift from the "singleness" of one-sided pursuit of profit maximization to the "diversification" of technologies that take into account the ecology, resources and environment, and serve as the direction of technological choice for enterprise development. Encourage product producers to consider from the initial stages of design, production, etc., to make the package easy to be recycled after use, thereby reducing environmental pollution. Restricting the use of packaging materials that are harmful to the environment and packaging technologies and equipment that pollute the environment, the packaging materials that are harmful to the environment should be subject to high taxes and fees. The implementation of green packaging tax preferential policies, for easy recycling of packaging products, natural green packaging materials products, environmental degradation of plastic packaging materials products, should be preferential support in tax policies. Packaging costs can be collected by professional recycling companies in the industry to support recycling.

2, the implementation of the packaging deposit system

For packaging of products that must be recycled and reusable, sellers are required to provide additional deposits at the time of sale to promote reuse of the packaging. The deposit system is a very effective method for the recycling of packaging waste, and many countries have enforced it through laws. For example, Sweden, the United States, Australia and other countries implement a deposit system for metal cans, with a return rate of 80%-90%; Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and other countries implement a deposit system for plastic beverage containers, and the return rate exceeds 60%. According to the German government's regulations, Germany will charge a deposit for reusable beverage bottles. Consumers are required to pay a deposit of 25-50 euro cents per bottle when buying mineral water such as cola and beer belonging to such bottles. The Oregon Legislature of the United States passed the “Bottle and Cans Act” in 1972 to encourage factories to design beverage bottles in a unified manner in order to collect, sort, and reuse beverages. Currently, this method has been promoted throughout the United States. According to statistics, after implementing the deposit system in New York, it will save 50 million U.S. dollars in cleaning fees, 19.9 million U.S. dollars in solid waste disposal fees, and 50 million to 100 million U.S. dollars in energy costs in two years.

3. Land expropriation tax

Many countries have adopted landfill taxes to encourage the reuse of packaging waste and reduce waste, and use it as a means to increase government revenue and support environmental projects. The implementation of the landfill tax makes the cost of landfilling include environmental costs, increases the cost of landfilling waste, reduces the amount of landfilled waste, and promotes solid waste that is conducive to the sustainable development of the recycling economy model. The development of management methods. Countries and regions that currently levy landfill taxes include the United Kingdom, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, and France. Judging from the effect of the developed countries, the landfill tax levy has greatly reduced the production of packaging waste. Amount, and increased government revenues, broaden the sources of funds for the recycling of packaging waste.

(3) To develop environmentally friendly packaging materials and promote green packaging

Environmentally friendly packaging materials are packaging materials under the concept of "environmental materials". The reason why environmental materials become environmental materials is that, first of all, these materials take into account the problems of saving environmental resources and saving energy, both in the process of use and in the production process; Second, the material must be recycled or recycled. The impact of such materials on the environment is relatively small. Environmentally friendly packaging materials must meet environmental protection requirements throughout the development, production, processing, and use of packaging materials, as well as recycling, reuse, and disposal. These are conducive to the regeneration or recycling of resources, to the ecological environment, and to the consumption of environmental resources. . Environmentally friendly packaging materials meet the principles of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Regeneration, and Regradable, ie, the "4R+1D" principle.

In the boom of sustainable development, “a green revolution has arisen all over the world. The essence of packaging green revolution is to focus on the coordination of packaging and the environment. Its purpose is to help conserve natural resources; second, it is to minimize damage to the ecological environment. It is in this context that friendly packaging materials are proposed, and environmental friendly packaging materials control the occurrence of environmental pollution from the source of the pollution of packaging materials.Using environmentally friendly packaging materials is an inevitable choice for sustainable development of the packaging industry.Environmentally friendly packaging materials R&D considers the following two aspects: first, natural materials, second, ecological materials or ecological transformation of traditional materials, attaching importance to the direct use of natural resources, and vigorously developing natural materials to make packaging, which is an important consideration in the development of environmentally friendly packaging materials. Such as wood, bamboo, rice, grass, wheat straw, bagasse, switchgrass, rattan, etc., some can be directly packaged, and some can be made of important packaging materials after simple processing.Two advantages of natural materials for packaging: It is the shortening of the product life cycle chain, only through raw materials, manufacturing, use and disposal. At the two stages, the cycle chain is short and the damage to the environment is small, and secondly, it can be naturally degraded after being discarded, and has no harm to the environment.The development of ecological materials is to develop from the raw materials to the processing technology with little pollution to the environment and it can be degraded by itself after use. Recycling convenient packaging materials, or ecologically transforming traditional packaging materials, this is typically represented by the development of degradable plastics. At present, research and development and trials of degradable plastics, photodegradable plastics, biodegradable plastics, and light Biodegradable plastics, water-soluble plastics, etc. In the packaging industry, the recyclability and reuse of packaging materials are also particularly important.The recyclability and reusability of packaging materials is also an important concept of environmentally friendly packaging materials. National legislation stipulates that after completing the value of its products, various products must return to its place of birth for recycling and recycling of resources.In Japan, it is even stipulated that companies, including packaging, not only take responsibility for the quality of their products but also the users. The waste formed after use must also be responsible to users and responsible to society. Some foreign packaging companies The reuse of recycled products seen as important as the product itself.