Environmental pollution: paper and plastic

Foam plastic packaging products, with their light weight and low cost, have increasingly become partners in people's daily lives. At present, foamed plastic packaging products are increasing at a rate of 10%. According to statistics from related departments, the total output of foamed plastics in China has exceeded 500,000 tons, of which about 250,000 tons are used for shock-absorbing packaging of household appliances, industrial accessories, and insulation of buildings and cold storage, etc. Tens of thousands of tons was used for one-time snack boxes and tableware. However, foamed plastic products are not only large in quantity but also large in size due to their use and disposal. They are inconvenient to recycle and are difficult to degrade on their own. This not only results in a huge waste of resources, but also causes serious environmental pollution. More than two-thirds of the foamed plastic packaging products are abandoned after use and become useless garbage.
In October 1995, China promulgated the "Law of the People's Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of the Pollution of Solid Waste Mattresses." Article 17 clearly stipulates that "products should be packaged materials that are easy to recycle, easy to dispose, or easily absorbed in the environment." "The State shall implement the principle of reducing the generation of solid waste, fully utilizing solid waste, and harmlessly disposing of solid waste by preventing solid waste from polluting the environment." The State Environmental Protection Administration has also formulated technical requirements for the environmental labeling of foamed plastic packaging materials. Therefore, if you want to avoid white pollution, the easiest way is to prohibit production and prohibit use. The railway department and some large and medium-sized cities have successively made regulations prohibiting the production, sale and use of disposable non-degradable plastic tableware. Some public opinion regards foamed plastic packaging material as a scourge of the flood, which is regarded as the culprit of environmental pollution.
We know that paper (cardboard) and plastic are two major categories of packaging. They have their own characteristics and have their own markets. In the past, there have been plastic-to-paper alternatives for certain uses, but this is a replacement of old and new materials and a manifestation of technological progress. Now, in order to maintain the environment, many people have put forward the idea of ​​"relying on paper instead of plastic." It seems that as long as plastics are all replaced with paper, environmental pollution can be solved once and for all. If so? Is paper more conducive to environmental protection than plastic?
Paper and paperboard have a long history in the field of packaging, production is very large, and very versatile. Because it is rich in resources, good printability and poor recovery characteristics, and after use can be decomposed into carbon dioxide and water, can rejoin the natural cycle, therefore, is a popular packaging material. So far it still ranks first in the world total packaging output, but it also has some weaknesses, such as water absorption, oil absorption, poor air-enhancement, more complex production, large production process pollution, high cost, and limited application range. Foamed plastic packaging materials are light, transparent, strong, moisture-proof, and corrosion-resistant. They can also be multiplexed and multi-layered. They can not only meet the increasing protection and commodity value requirements of goods during storage and distribution, but also can accommodate Today's mechanization, automation, high-speed packaging technology and high-level decoration technology needs. Therefore, since the 1960s, foamed plastics have entered the packaging industry on a larger scale and have achieved rapid development. They have played an active role in making up for the shortage of quality and quantity of traditional packaging materials and meeting the increasing demand in the market. So far it is second only to paper and cardboard in the packaging field, and its annual growth rate is far ahead of paper packaging. The biggest weakness of foamed plastics is that they cannot be decomposed on their own after use. Therefore, if the waste is not recycled, it will cause environmental pollution.
The raw material for paper is wood, straw and grass. It can be continuously regenerated and its resources guaranteed. However, the large amount of wood used will reduce the area of ​​forest and destroy the ecological balance. With grass plants, the production process is more serious. At present, the world's population is inflated, the consumption of wood is soaring, and the destruction of forests on the earth is still under development. As the forest is damaged, 6 million hectares of land are desertified each year. The use of thinning and post-cutting methods also have many problems. It can be seen that forest resources are not unlimited. China's forest resources are even poorer, and the per capita wood ownership is only 0.042 cubic meters. Although grass resources are relatively abundant, waste gas and waste fluids in the production process are very polluted. If it is not economically scaled, it will be difficult to control. Especially in China, the purification of water has become a key issue in ensuring the sustainable development of the economy. It is more serious than the environmental pollution caused by solid waste. Foam plastics mainly use oil as raw grain, and petroleum resources are non-renewable resources. According to data, it is reported that its extraction volume is still about 50 years, which is the biggest weakness of foamed plastic raw material resources.
From the point of view of the environmental pollution caused by the effluent from the production process, the paper is usually chemically separated from wood or other cellulose-rich plant tissues (such as stalks, wheat straw, cotton linters, sugarcane, reeds, rice straw, etc.). The pulp obtained by purification is then made into paper and then processed into various paper packaging products. The process is relatively complicated. Waste gas waste liquid such as recycling is improperly treated, and it will seriously pollute the environment. Although mechanical packing has little pollution, it consumes large amounts of energy. The plastic is obtained by separating and purifying the gas obtained from the cracking of petroleum, and polymer materials (EPS, PO, etc.) are obtained through polymerization, and then processed into various plastic packaging materials and products. No pollution or pollution occurs in the process. light. The German Environmental Protection Agency had analyzed and compared foamed plastic cups and paper cups. The results showed that plastic cups are more conducive to the use of natural resources and to reducing atmospheric pollution.
In addition, according to the report of "The possibility of polymer materials adapting to global environmental problems" in the report of the Japan Machinery Industry Federation and Polymer Materials Research Center in the early 1990s, the comparison of foamed plastic cups and paper cups, and the data published by the University of Victoria, Canada All believe that from the production to the application of the whole process of analysis, the degree of pollution of the foamed plastic cup to the earth's environment is no worse than that of paper cups.
Compare energy and raw material consumption. According to German and Japanese data, under the same conditions of output and specifications, the energy consumption for producing paper cups is about 2 times higher than that of foamed plastic cups, 4-7 times higher power, and only 1/3 of cooling. From the analysis of the energy required for recycling, the energy required for recovery of the foamed plastic per unit is 100, and the paper is 21,000. From the aspect of raw material consumption, the same specifications and the same number of paper cups are produced 3 times more than foamed plastic cups.
Paper packaging materials such as tableware, bags, boxes, etc., must be coated with plastic or other coatings in order to achieve waterproofing, which inevitably increases the difficulty of recycling and increases the cost, and also affects their inherent degradability. If the method of sizing or adding a water-repellent agent is used in the production process, it will also increase the cost, which is not conducive to market competition.
It appears that plastic packaging materials and products not only save energy and save resources during the entire production process and after-treatment process, but also have less serious impact on the environment than paper. In addition to lighter plastics, plastic is also better than paper in terms of reducing the amount of waste discharged. Therefore, it is wrong to put forward the arguments of “using paper instead of plastic” and “banning plastic packaging” without analysis.
According to a survey conducted by the German Packaging Market Research Association, the total cost of packaging has increased by 212% when plastics are excluded in the packaging field. If the “paper substitute” or “degradation generation foam” takes effect nationwide, not only will the burden on consumers be increased, but more than 130 production lines imported from hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars will be discontinued, and paper products may also be used. Or degradable plastic products cause new conflicts and new problems.
Of course, if the plastic packaging waste is not disposed of in an effective manner and it is discarded everywhere, the pollution to the environment is also serious. Other packaging materials such as random waste will also pollute the environment. It should not be due to the large volume of plastic packaging waste. After use, it cannot be decomposed on its own. Some plastics also generate some harmful gases when they are burned. Therefore, landfill and incineration methods also have some problems. This is one of the main reasons why it suffers fierce shocks. However, in recent years, the industry has taken active measures: plastic waste can be recovered as much as possible (including mechanical, chemical recovery, composting, etc.), and mixed wastes that are not easily separated and sorted are incinerated to recover energy. In addition, together with technical measures to suppress the generation of waste, plastic packaging waste has begun to be treated for environmental pollution. With the continuous development of science and technology, governance measures and technical measures will be increasingly perfect. It can be expected that as a rising star in the field of packaging materials, plastic packaging has played an active role in energy saving, material saving, and improvement of packaging and decoration effects. As it gradually solves a series of problems in environmental pollution, it will have stronger vitality. And competitiveness. It will continue to develop and coexist with paper packaging for a long time.