New concept of green packaging design

At the beginning of the new century, green consumption has swept the world. It is moving from the advanced industrial countries to developing countries. Especially the green industry is inextricably linked with human production and life. It provides consumers with more green products, and is obliged to provide information for the general public on green products, guide green consumption, green technologies and green products, and work together to promote sustainable economic development and create a green home for future generations. .

Green is the color of life, and life is calling for green. It is a symbol of harmony, health, safety and well-being. It is a guide for people to buy high-tech products. It is the driving force for the knowledge economy. In short, in a sense, green is an important symbol of modern human civilization. In today's world, people use green as a synonym for both humans and the environment. The wave of green life is becoming an international hot spot.

As an intermediary linking production and life, products have unshirkable responsibility for the current ecological environment problems faced by humans. If the product is at the core, linking the product production process and the use of the product with the post-processing process constitutes a product system that includes raw material extraction, raw material production, product manufacturing and use, and post-use product disposal and recycling. . In this product system, as the input of the system (resources and energy), the problem of resource exhaustion and energy shortage is caused, and as the output of the system, the “three wastes” emissions cause industrial pollution problems. Therefore, all ecological and environmental issues are indispensable. Closely related to the product system. Therefore, from the product development and design stage, it is necessary to design the product green packaging. The development and design of environmentally friendly products has become a hot topic in the current international industry sustainable development action plan, and is also one of the objectives of the international ISO14000 environmental management standard system.

Product packaging design is a process of transforming a person's purpose or need into a concrete physical form or tool. Traditional product design theories and methods are based on human-centeredness, starting from satisfying people's needs and solving problems, and ignoring the consumption of resources and energy and the discharge of the environment during the follow-up product production and use. Therefore, the traditional theory and method of product development and design must be reformed and innovated. According to the theory of industrial ecology and the theory of green engineering design, a new concept of product packaging green design emerged.

First, the basic connotation of green packaging design concept
Green packaging design is a strategy for comprehensive prevention of pollution and conservation of resources used in the design of products to develop environmental, economic, sustainable product system. It is a pollution prevention requirement that considers the entire life cycle of product development (including product design, extraction of raw materials, manufacture, packaging, sales, and use of products, and the entire recycling process after use) from the perspective of environmental protection and economic feasibility. Use resources and energy to reduce the environmental impact of the product's production and consumption processes, so that it is consistent with the earth's carrying capacity. This is something new in the industry in recent years. It is considered to be the highest level of cleaner production measures. Europe and Japan have tried their best to combine ecology and product design to create great market competitiveness.

In the specific implementation, it is to compare the industrial production process to an ecological system, and comprehensively balance the input and output of the system. In this balancing process, the entire life-cycle analysis from “cradle to grave” is needed, from the initial extraction of raw materials to the processing after the final product is used. The green packaging design requires the participation of designers, ecologists, and environmentalists, all working together. The future "green factory" will be the standard model of industrial production, and green packaging design will also be the mainstream of future product development.

Second, the change of packaging design concept
The specific design schemes for various products vary greatly, but from the perspective of packaging design procedures and methodologies, there are still some common concepts and steps. Generally include analysis of product function requirements, definition of product specifications, implementation of design plans, and reference product evaluation. In the traditional product packaging design, the main considerations for the above four stages are the technology and economic factors such as market consumption demand, product quality, cost, and feasibility of manufacturing technology. The traditional product packaging design often starts from the user's needs and the profitability of the company. It rarely considers the pollution to the environment and the depletion of resources, and does not consider the eco-environmental factor as an important indicator of product packaging development and design. The manufacture and use of foam plastic snackware is an example, it does bring great convenience to consumers, but it is not easy to decompose in the soil. The goal of green packaging design is to save resources, prevent pollution, maintain the quality of the environment, and maintain a diverse and sustainable ecological system to support long-term, dynamic economic systems. Therefore, new ideas and methods must be introduced in product eco-design:

1. The shift from "people-centered" product packaging design to taking into account people's needs and considering the safe green design of ecosystems.


2. From the concept phase of product development, the introduction of eco-environment variables and comprehensive consideration with traditional design factors such as: cost, quality, technical feasibility, economic effectiveness, etc.

Third, the difference between traditional packaging design and green packaging design
Traditional packaging design is extensive, it only considers the product's function, quality, life expectancy, and does not consider the use of the product and its impact on the environment when the product is abandoned. Its production model is the product life cycle is "cradle to grave." This kind of production mode that consumes a lot of energy, wastes resources, has little function, and has a low recovery rate can achieve economical development in the short term. However, in the long-term interest, it wastes a lot of non-renewable resources on the earth (such as forests, ores, Oil, etc.), and the life of the produced product has become solid waste after the end of its life, and the current level of technology is difficult to handle. This kind of “killing chickens and eggs” can only be achieved through increasing input consumption. Development of the tuxedo pattern at the expense of the environment cannot be sustained. The consequences it must bring are that future generations are deprived of the opportunity to enjoy equal development and consumption, while the older generation The scientific and technological workers became "crime sinners."

Green packaging design is intensive, and its difference from traditional packaging design is: from the concept of the formation of products to manufacturing, and even after the recycling of recycling and disposal at all stages, must fundamentally prevent pollution. Its mode of production is that the product cycle is "production to reproduction", focusing on regeneration instead of graves. From the point of view of economics, it is called getting the maximum reward at the lowest price. It is characterized by minimizing the product volume and occupying less space; considering the impact on the environment when the product is produced, used, and discarded; reducing the product parts, making it easy to recycle, easy to disassemble, and the parts or the whole machine can be refurbished and recycled to reduce Waste pollution to the environment.

Fourth, the green packaging design elements
Different from the traditional packaging design, the green packaging element not only focuses on the function of the product, but also emphasizes the product's environmental requirements and safety to human health, and multi-level use of energy and materials.

The key to the control of green packaging design elements is to apply the analysis methods of environment and resource benefits to the design of products to achieve the coordination of the functional, environmental and cost characteristics of the products so as to achieve good environmental and economic benefits. AT&T Corporation of the United States used the green design method to summarize the key elements of the control of design elements. The design elements that will meet regulatory, performance, environmental, cultural, and cost requirements at the same time will be incorporated into the design of the product.

V. Main contents of green packaging design
In the green packaging design, the product's environmental attributes (removability, recyclability, maintainability, reusability, etc.) are prioritized during the product's production cycle to reduce the environmental pollution and meet the above requirements. To ensure the basic performance of the product (life, quality, cost, etc.), the two must not be neglected, but also to ensure smooth implementation in the production cycle.

1. Material selection and management in green packaging design
The choice of materials should take into account the use and performance of the product, ie the selection of non-toxic, non-polluting and easily recyclable, reusable, easily decomposable and materials, and the use of rare and precious materials as little as possible. Materials containing harmful ingredients should be stacked separately. For products that have completed their life cycle, useful and discarded parts can be recycled or processed separately to minimize environmental pollution and material costs.

2, product packaging recyclability design
The initial stage of product packaging design should consider the possibility of recovery and regeneration of its parts, that is, in other new products, parts and materials in used or discarded products can be used. Reasonable reproduction methods will generate huge economic benefits. This should consider the possibility of product parts or material recovery, the size of recycling value, recycling methods, recycling structure processing technology and other issues, and conduct economic evaluation of recyclability to minimize waste.

3, the product's removable design
The detachability of the product should be used as an evaluation criterion for structural design. Assemblability and disassembly of parts often create contradictions, but it is firstly considered that disassembly is convenient. It is a prerequisite for product recycling and recycling. Only in this way, parts or constituent materials of waste products can be reused after a certain regeneration technology. Because the products vary widely, the specific methods for solving them are also different. The basic principles are: 1 to reduce the disassembly workload; 2 to prevent product structure; 3 easy to disassemble; 4 easy to separate, to avoid auxiliary operations;

4, the cost of green packaging design
At the initial stage of green packaging design, functions such as recycling and reuse must be considered. Therefore, in cost analysis, it is not possible to consider only the internal costs in the process of design, manufacture, and sales, but also to include users and society in the process of use and disposal. The cost, therefore, should be estimated from the following aspects in the cost analysis: the cost of contaminant replacement materials, product disassembly costs, product reuse costs, and the corresponding environmental costs of special products. It should be noted that the actual cost of the same product project in different regions and countries will also result in a difference in cost. Therefore, the analysis of the cost of green products should be carried out at every design stage so that the cost can be designed. Products that are low and less polluting

Source: PACK.CN