The hottest view on the environmental protection s

A view on the current situation of environmental protection of food flexible packaging

in recent years, the progress made by China's flexible packaging industry in environmental protection and safety has become the focus of the world. In addition to the large population and great potential of packaging consumption, the practice of actively exploring the world's advanced technology and materials in China's flexible packaging industry is also a factor. China's flexible packaging industry has always been a very active industry. People with lofty ideals try to seize every rare opportunity to promote the wider application of environmental protection and safety materials. In this context, the policies and regulations of the relevant departments of the state are also in full swing. Although it is still unsatisfactory at present, these achievements have a significant and far-reaching impact on the future development pattern of flexible packaging in China

here, I would like to discuss with my colleagues two outstanding issues in the industry. I think the pre-trial industry mainly focuses on two issues:

solving the problem of "toluene" residue in food flexible packaging; Adhesives are generally changing to environmental protection

in my opinion, solving the "toluene" residue in food packaging is definitely not a technical problem. At present, the bottleneck lies in the guidance, formulation and implementation of "industry standards". Generally speaking, if the government has formulated mandatory environmental protection laws and regulations, flexographic printing will prevail in the market; On the contrary, gravure printing will prevail in the market. The formulation and implementation of government environmental protection regulations are based on consumers' awareness of environmental protection and economic conditions. Therefore, gravure printing will continue to maintain its absolute leading position in China's packaging market for a long time, but benzene solvents can be eliminated in local areas. The industry should also pay attention to dust prevention and protection. Friends in the grounding industry have reached a consensus when discussing this point. The focus of our work should be in the following aspects:

first, the localization of benzene free (ketone free) adhesives should be further deepened, and then the localization of single liquid general composite inks with convenient benzene free (ketone free) operation should be completed. Secondly, further subdivide the market, and some markets are in line with international standards. Many domestic color printing enterprises and ink production enterprises have begun this work, and have achieved extremely significant results. The final result of this work will promote the improvement and implementation of national policies and regulations, which in turn will promote greater progress in environmental protection and safety in the flexible packaging industry and provide consumers with a more comprehensive health and safety guarantee. In this process, we can learn from Japanese practices. The gravure printing industry Federation of Japan published the "proposal to promote benzene free" in 1995. Under the background of no government mandatory regulations, the "proposal" proposed and proposed to control the residue of food packaging solvent at 1mg/m2, and proposed to compress the two force arms to prohibit the use of benzene containing inks on food packaging bags in 2013. This initiative was quickly recognized and constrained by the manufacturer. At present, from 10mg/m2 solvent residue stipulated in the industry standard to the industry recommendation standard, China clearly puts forward that "toluene should be controlled below 3mg/m2". Although it has made great progress, it is obviously too loose, which will also have problems for the guidance of the whole industry, and is also very detrimental to the integration of China's packaging enterprises with the world. In fact, the application of aliphatic inks has been popular in the past two years. Domestic enterprises, whether color printing enterprises or ink manufacturers, are actively promoting the use of aliphatic benzene free (ketone free) inks according to the requirements of food enterprises

at present, there are three views on the development of adhesives in the industry. One view believes that water-based adhesives are the direction of future development; One view is that solvent-free is the direction of future development; One view is that the future development direction should be hot melt adhesive (not discussed here). Although each view has a certain business background, it also represents the good vision and expectations of consumers and manufacturers for environmental protection products, and manufacturers have begun the process of realizing that the end face processing should have a high finish. Judging from the current situation in China, solvent-free adhesives started earlier and have achieved good results in some manufacturers. However, the promotion of solvent-free seems to have encountered a lot of resistance in the past two years. The main reason is that there are few solvent-free composite production lines newly introduced by color printing enterprises. The environmental protection advantages of solvent-free are undoubtedly confirmed in the whole industry, although there was a time when there were doubts about the health and safety of low molecular substances and additives in solvent-free. The attention of Henkel in the solvent-free field in China represents a very strong judgment of Henkel on the development prospect of China's solvent-free market. 2006 should be a bumper year for China's environmentally friendly adhesives, which benefits not only from the recognition of industry consumers, but also from the cultivation of the water-based adhesive market by Rohm and Haas, but also from the sharp rise in the price of adhesive raw materials, resulting in the rise in the cost of solvent-based adhesives. The use cost of solvent-based adhesives has been higher than that of water-based adhesives. At present, domestic enterprises have passed the stage of theoretical acceptance and non acceptance, but face the problem of how to expand its application. It is against this background that the growth of water-based adhesive market in 2006 is amazing, and no one can expect such growth of water-based adhesive. What I want to say is that adhesive manufacturers should be aware that the flexible packaging industry has always been a very active industry. China's flexible packaging enterprises have always been very active in the study and practice of the world's latest materials, technologies and processes. To better promote the market application of water-based adhesives and environmental friendly adhesives, it is no longer a matter of the concept of color printing enterprises and food enterprises, but how adhesive enterprises develop more mature Problems of products with wider adaptability and more convenient operation. At present, the application of water-based adhesives in aluminum composite flexible packaging has only been promoted, and the promotion in other structures is not ideal. The reason is that the current technical defects of water-based adhesives. The water-based adhesives produced by Rohm Haas completely belong to the field of water-based acrylic acid, and there are still some technical problems in the application of plastic composites, Although Beijing GAOMENG company has made applicable products in the field of waterborne polyurethane. However, due to the high cost, it is obviously unable to be widely used in the market at present. Its water-based adhesive is still only used in the field of aluminized composite packaging. The wide adaptability of water-based adhesive materials is the bottleneck of the current market promotion of water-based acrylic products

reprinted from: China Packaging News