Environmental packaging and environmental costs (below)

4, the environmental cost of packaging

One great man said: Economics is the oldest art and the most novel science. In fact, all human activities can not be separated from economics, the world environment and development, and packaging and environmental protection are inseparable from economics. To understand the theory of environmental costs in economics, it is necessary to introduce two major theories in economics: one is Adam Smith's absolute cost theory; the other is the environmental cost of Elif Heckscher. theory.

Adam Smith of England is the world's most famous outstanding representative of economics. His theoretical center is economic liberalism. He advocates international trade in absolute costs. Swedish economist E. Heckscher pioneered the theory of environmental costs in the proposed environmental factor endowment theory. He divided the environmental elements into three categories: natural resources (including land), capital, and labor. The natural resources are divided into five categories: agricultural and forestry resources, fisheries and hunting resources, mineral resources, hydraulic resources, and transportation resources. The theory represented by them played a positive role in the industrial revolution and international trade of Western countries and had a great impact on the development of the world economy. The theory they advocated, such as “natural advantage” production (ie, environmental cost theory), international trade, and international division of labor, is now more viable.

Environmental cost refers to the sum of the cost for solving and compensating for environmental pollution, ecological damage, and loss of resources during production, use, transportation, and recycling of products. Generally speaking, it consists of three parts: one is the normal cost of resource extraction, acquisition, and use; the other is the cost of environmental cleanup and environmental damage associated with resource extraction, acquisition, use, and product use recovery; Due to the use of this part of resources by contemporary people, it cannot be used for the benefit of future generations. World environment and development, and packaging and environmental protection all have environmental costs.

According to the principle of economics, any product and activity cannot be separated from the environment, so all products and activities have environmental costs. For example, the reality is that environmental resources are overutilized or misused. Enterprises and enterprises discharge waste water into rivers to pollute the water. The factory pollutes the air with fresh air and people dispose of the waste indiscriminately and pollute the environment. The main reason for this... The main reason is that the cost of using the environment has not entered cost accounting, and polluters have not paid for environmental pollution, but this does not mean that humans do not pay a price. In general, such costs are borne by society, organizations, or other people. This is an extremely unreasonable phenomenon. According to the United Nations "Environment and Development Principles" and "WTO Three Principles", only by allowing relevant organizations (companies, companies, manufacturers) or units to bear these costs, can the world's environmental resources enter the market system's resource allocation and thus prevent environmental resources. Abuse and environmental pollution to ensure the human environment and development.

In order to maintain an environment of fair competition in international trade, the WTO proposes "three principles" (principle of sustainability, principle of coordination, and principle of fairness), with special emphasis on the fact that each member country must not implement a subsidy trade strategy. For example, when a country’s environmental standards are low and its enterprises are unable to bear the huge costs of environmental pollution control, in order to protect their own ecological environment, the government provides environmental subsidies for their products and transfers the environmental costs that should have been borne by the enterprises. Social commitment, which clearly violates the principle of fair trade, can be exported to other countries at a lower sales price, which in turn constitutes an "eco-dumping" and is bound to encounter anti-dumping by other countries. Therefore, the WTO advocates the implementation of the "Three Principles" in international trade and the use of eco-labelling to ensure the principle of fairness in international trade.

In addition, more importantly, the implementation of environmental costing is conducive to the integration of environmental costs into the national economic accounting system, the establishment of resource value compensation mechanisms and market competition mechanisms, and the rational adjustment of the flow direction, structure, and scale of environmental factors to prevent the alienation of scarce resources. "For environmental pollution. By costing the environment, we can not only solve the source of funds for environmental protection, but also truly reflect the value of the products, and are conducive to the optimal allocation of domestic environmental resources. We can use domestic and international resources and two markets in a wider range. To optimize the use of environmental resources and achieve the goal of protecting the environment, the world's "environment and development" will be synchronized.

5, environmental protection packaging design

Environmental packaging design is proposed for the world environment and development, to protect the earth's ecological balance, and to protect the earth's resources. Therefore, there are four principles for environmentally friendly packaging design:

1) International principles. It is mainly the "five major requirements" of the United Nations (see above) and the "three major principles" of the WTO. The three major principles are: (a) the principle of sustainability, that is, the protection of the environment to ensure the sharing of world resources and its continued use; (b) the principle of harmonization, that is, cooperation between packaging and environmental protection and coordinated development; (c) the principle of fairness, that is, contemporary People need to consider the interests of future generations and use them fairly.

2) In the design of environmental protection packaging, we must first consider the limited mineral resources, biological resources, energy resources and ecological balance of the earth. Then according to the data provided by the LCA assessment, select suitable packaging materials and packaging solutions. The International Organization for Standardization ISO has also proposed feasible solutions in this regard.

3) China's annual packaging waste amounts to more than 20 million tons, so this is an important aspect of environmental protection packaging engineering design. When packaging “birth”, it is necessary to arrange the “aftercare” of packaging waste: or the means or methods for recycling, or processing and reuse, or other products, to constitute a virtuous cycle of perfect packaging waste. Reduce the load (impact) on the environment. Packaging material accessories (such as: adhesives, buffer foam, etc.) can reduce the reduction, can save the province, can be replaced on behalf of generation; packaging containers should have material identification symbols, easy to recycle and reuse; packaging waste recycling as much as possible recycling applications, Reduce disposable packaging. The first three principles are actually the 3R principles of internationally popular waste design.

4) Packaging Life Assessment (LCA). In the environmental protection packaging design, the assessment of the ecological life of the packaging is not only the situation but also the need for continuous production, and it is also a prerequisite for the WTO's international trade. The ISO14000 international standard expressly provides that all international trade products/packaged goods are subject to environmental certification (EA) and ecological life assessment (LCA), and the use of environmental labeling (EL), thus showing its importance.

All in all, environmental protection packaging design must focus on the world's "environment and development" at the same time; Second, we must pay attention to the impact of the material and energy consumed on the natural environment resources; Third, we must pay attention to the degree of environmental impact of waste released into the environment . Fourth, we must pay attention to the environmental costs of packaging and environmental protection. To ensure the sustainable development of China's green economy and green packaging.