China Rolls Out Preferential Policies for Green, Eco-Friendly Packaging

Our government is further stepping up support for the environmental protection industry. Since the Ministry of Finance issued the Measures for the Administration of High-Tech R&D Funds for the Packaging Industry, which specify that, in order to standardize the management of high-tech R&D funds for the packaging industry, support the packaging industry in actively developing new products and adopting new technologies, and promote the development of the circular economy and of green, environmentally friendly packaging, from now on eligible enterprises will have the opportunity to receive support of up to 5 million yuan in R&D funds. The scope of R&D fund support includes projects that have a certain level or , new environmentally friendly packaging material projects that safeguard personal health and safety and meet environmental protection requirements, packaging reduction and energy-saving projects, and packaging waste treatment and utilization projects — projects that conform to national macro policies and to environmental protection and circular economy policies. The R&D funds are mainly provided in two ways: non-repayable subsidies and loan interest subsidies.

Countermeasures and Suggestions for Promoting Green Packaging: Establishing a Green Packaging Evaluation System

China's current life cycle assessment (LCA) method still faces great difficulties in operation, for example the calculation work is a very complex and tedious task and both the workload and the difficulty are considerable: the central link of LCA — the collection of inventory data — is difficult; and the impact assessment of LCA requires the determination of various equivalence coefficients and weights, and the dimensional conversion among the various quantities is also very difficult. Therefore, the conditions for carrying out LCA are not yet fully in place and it cannot be widely promoted; a fairly long preparatory process is required. In view of this situation, in order to advance the development of green, environmentally friendly packaging in a timely way, we need to adopt a two-step approach: first classify green, environmentally friendly packaging and apply different graded review standards.

AA-grade green, environmentally friendly packaging. This refers to moderate packaging whose waste can be recycled for reuse, regenerated or degraded, whose toxic substance content is within the prescribed limits, and which causes no public hazard to human health or the environment throughout the entire life cycle of the product. For AA-grade green, environmentally friendly packaging, LCA can be used to formulate certification standards, or its inventory analysis and impact assessment data can be used directly as evaluation criteria, and the corresponding Type IS0140001 and Type III environmental labels are awarded. A-grade green, environmentally friendly packaging. This refers to moderate packaging whose waste can be recycled for reuse, regenerated or degraded and whose toxic substance content is within the prescribed limits.

For A-grade green, environmentally friendly packaging, five operational indicators can be formulated according to its definition: whether it is reduced in quantity; whether the toxic and hazardous components in the packaging material exceed the standard; whether the packaging product carries the producing enterprise's "self-declared environmental claim"; whether the packaging product can be reused or recovered and regenerated; and whether the packaging product can degrade on its own. Any packaging that meets the indicators can be awarded a single-factor environmental label.

Establishing China's green, environmentally friendly packaging evaluation system involves the entire process of manufacturing, using, recovering and discarding packaging products, and also involves China's foreign trade law, inspection and quarantine regulations and other packaging regulations. Proceeding from the strategic height of sustainable development, we must establish a green, environmentally friendly packaging system that covers many aspects — national legislation, departmental supervision, industry coordination, enterprise implementation, support from research institutions and broad public participation — and that can operate effectively.

Improving Laws and Regulations and Establishing an Operating Mechanism for Green, Environmentally Friendly Packaging

The sourcing and amount of packaging materials, as well as waste gas and wastewater discharge during manufacturing and the recovery, reuse and regeneration of packaging waste, must all be achieved by relying on laws, regulations and other administrative and economic measures and means.

, we must strengthen the building of laws and regulations.

A series of major national laws — the Environmental Protection Law, the Cleaner Production Promotion Law, the Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste, the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law and the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law — provide a strong legal guarantee for environmental protection. However, supporting regulations that take into account the actual situation of the industry still need further improvement.

Second, use the tax lever to adjust the relationship between enterprise interests and public interests. Most packaging manufacturers and importers in China focus only on their own corporate interests and seldom take the initiative to consider the natural environment and the public interest; in production they are accustomed to using virgin materials and are not accustomed to using recycled materials.

In order to further strengthen the awareness of a conservation-oriented economy and advance the recovery of packaging waste, it is suggested that an environmental pollution tax be levied on packaging producers and on manufacturers and importers that use packaging, on the difference between the total amount produced or imported and the amount of packaging recovered, with a higher tax rate for a larger difference. There are long-standing precedents for this practice abroad.

Third, specify recovery targets for packaging waste and establish a society-wide recovery mechanism for packaging waste. Increase funding input to support R&D work on green, environmentally friendly packaging.

Fourth, carry out extensive publicity and education to create a good social atmosphere for green, environmentally friendly packaging. Units involved in technology, law, management and education, which are interrelated, should pool their wisdom and efforts to contribute jointly to implementing the circular economy and conservation-oriented economy policies and to developing the cause of green, environmentally friendly packaging.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362191.html