The United Nations Commission on Environment and Development 1987 published "Our Future Together", and the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development 1992 adopted the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Agenda 21, which immediately set off a worldwide green action focusing on protecting the ecological environment. The Ninth Five-Year Development Plan of China's packaging industry and the long-term development goal of 20 10 clearly point out that the development of packaging industry should follow the principle of adhering to the combination of accelerating growth and protecting the environment, and the green packaging design will focus on the ecological balance between man and nature and minimize the damage to the living environment to frame the design strategy, so as to promote the development of economy, culture and society with green packaging design; Green packaging fully embodies the idea and strategy of coordinated and sustainable development of environmental protection and economic development. Protecting the environment and developing green packaging has become an inevitable choice for developing packaging in all countries of the world, and green packaging will become an inevitable trend for the development of packaging industry.
Green packaging, English "GreenPackage", some people also call it "EviromentalFriendlyPackage" or "EcologicalPackage", which is harmless to the ecological environment and human health and can be recycled and regenerated.
Green packaging is a systematic project, which includes the knowledge of containers, packaging materials, packaging design, production technology and waste treatment technology, etc. It is the development direction of packaging discipline and the road of sustainable development of China packaging industry.
But at the same time, some packaging designers still have a problem in understanding the basic concept of packaging, that is, they think that commodity packaging design is only an important means to arouse consumers' desire to buy, promote commodity sales and obtain economic benefits. Under the influence of this concept, a large number of packaging designs only pay attention to immediate economic benefits, such as excessive increase in the size and volume of commodity packaging and unnecessary multi-level cumbersome packaging. In order to make commodities feel high-grade, high-cost printing is adopted, and in order to reduce packaging costs.
Green packaging should generally have five connotations: First, reduction.
Natural resources are the material basis for the packaging industry. From the perspective of human sustainable development, packaging should minimize the use of raw materials under the conditions of meeting the functions of protection, convenience and sales to benefit future generations.
Second, it is easy to reuse and recycle.
By producing recycled products, burning to utilize heat energy, composting to improve soil and other measures, the purpose of reuse can be achieved.
Third, waste packaging can be degraded.
In the end, permanent garbage will not be formed, thus achieving the purpose of improving the soil.
Fourth, packaging materials are non-toxic and harmless to human body and organisms.
Packaging materials should not contain toxic elements, and the content of germs, heavy metals or these should be controlled below the relevant standards; Fifth, packaging is closely related to environmental protection and ecological balance.
The whole process of packaging products from raw material collection, processing, manufacturing, use, waste recycling, and final treatment should not cause public hazards to biology and the environment.
Broadly speaking, we should produce, manufacture, use and recycle packaging materials that are harmless to human health and have a good protective effect on the ecological environment. As an important part of the packaging industry, packaging design can play a decisive role in the development of green packaging. I think we can think from the following aspects: 1. Use green materials: packaging designers should try to use green packaging materials, which can greatly reduce the environmental pollution after packaging is abandoned; For example, a new material developed by a foreign company can be used once and can be degraded naturally, and designers can try to use it in some fields.
Second, packaging reduction: in some developed countries, many supermarkets encourage consumers to use reusable nylon shopping bags instead of disposable plastic bags, reduce the materials used in packaging design as much as possible, eliminate unnecessary packaging as much as possible, and advocate simple packaging to save resources; The design also pays attention to the reduction of packaging, eliminates unnecessary decoration, and takes into account the function at the same time.
Third, single packaging material: the materials used are as simple as possible, and do not mix with different materials to facilitate recycling; For example, there is only one kind of packaging material for a cotton sock, which is not only convenient for recycling, but also has a strong sense of modernity and visual impact; At the same time, we should try to use environmentally friendly ink to realize green printing.
Fourth, the design of detachable packaging: the packaging that needs the structure of composite materials should be designed as a detachable structure, which is conducive to recycling after disassembly; If the packaging materials are complex, different materials and structures can be used in different parts for classification and recycling.
5. Reuse of packaging materials: Use recyclable, reusable and recyclable packaging to improve the life cycle of packaging, thus reducing packaging waste.
The environmental protection packaging material "Eikerling Material" developed by Eikerling Company in Sweden is taken from the pure natural packaging material-egg shell, based on calcium carbonate, the most widely distributed substance in nature, and polyolefin, which is harmless to human body and natural environment, is added as adhesive.
Their products can be made as strong as hard plastic bottles and as soft as ordinary plastic bags.
6. Ergonomics: Green packaging will follow the trend of ergonomic packaging, that is, easy to use, reasonable to carry, reliable to store and easy to interpret, and meet the psychological and physiological special needs of various groups of consumers, especially the elderly; For example, in addition to using green materials, a package is specially designed with plant fibers to make it convenient for people to carry, which is harmonious, beautiful and convenient to use, taking into account ergonomic design, and is worth promoting.
While considering many green factors, packaging design should pay attention to comprehensive balance. For example, a package overemphasizes the green structure and uses complex wrapping paper and packaging box. Although it is intended to emphasize the packaging materials and structure of commodity packaging, it is not worth promoting because of the waste of materials, although it has exquisite techniques and high design taste. Another example is that in the design language, it emphasizes and publicizes the information of environmental protection, creating the visual feeling of green packaging among patterns, names, colors and words, but at the same time using packaging materials that pollute the environment, which is also not desirable.
Therefore, in the actual design work, it is necessary to comprehensively balance the design factors and continuously accumulate design experience in order to obtain the optimal design.