Green printing and green packaging

With the development of science and technology, mankind has entered the stage of self-protection and sustainable development. All phenomena that are detrimental to the ecological environment and human health should be highly valued and strictly limited. In accordance with the requirements of the scientific development concept, vigorously developing a circular economy and accelerating the construction of a resource-saving society are particularly important and urgent.

The development of circular economy is the fundamental way to ease the contradiction of resource constraints, is an effective way to fundamentally reduce environmental pollution, is an important measure to increase economic efficiency, is an urgent need to respond to new trade protectionism, and is the essential requirement of human-oriented sustainable development. .

At present, the printing industry is increasingly aware of the excessive consumption of natural resources and energy in printing production and the pollution of packaging waste caused by the natural environment, which has become an obstacle to the development of the industry. "Health" and "green environmental protection" have increasingly attracted people's attention. Green printing has become one of the important factors in building a harmonious society.

Green printing

In the 1980s, European and American countries pioneered the concept of green printing. At present, green printing is leading and promoting global printing to a healthy and orderly direction with its strong influence. In foreign countries, it not only increases the demand for waste disposal, but also provides a way to reduce the consumption of ink. For example, as early as June 2000, the United Kingdom banned the use of solvent-based inks to print food packaging films. It is understood that 60% of prints in the UK are printed with alcohol-free or light alcohol inks. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency strongly opposes the use of solvent-based inks. Flexo-based water-based inks are currently the only non-toxic ink approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Association and are widely used for the packaging and printing of foods and pharmaceuticals.

In many countries, the people are also very concerned about the impact of commodities on health and the environment. For example, a recent French survey showed that 95% of French people want to understand the potential harm to the health and environment of the goods they buy, and they hope that the government will increase the safety of the products. Transparency related laws. 83% of French surveyed believe that today's children are facing more product safety threats than their parents, especially today's goods contain more substances that are potentially dangerous to human health than past products, such as certain chemicals. Wait. In recent years, as people's awareness of environmental protection has increased, green environmental flexo printing is more worth our expectation!

The impact of printed products on environmental protection is understood to be strictly limited in two aspects at the international level: the residual content of solvents is not allowed to exist or exceed the standard. The solvents here mainly refer to benzene, esters, ketones, etc.; heavy metals such as lead, chromium, The content of copper and mercury must comply with the provisions of European 94/62/EC. Its concentration must not exceed 100PPM (accumulator). The above two restrictions apply to the harmful substances in the ink.

The ink used in flexographic printing has its unique advantages. Now there are three types of flexographic printing inks: water-based inks; alcohol solvent inks; and UV inks. In particular, water-based inks do not contain solvents. Therefore, there is no residual solvent content. It is an internationally recognized environment-friendly ink. At present, it has been widely used in some countries. The alcohol solvent in the methanol-free alcohol solvent ink is much less polluting than the benzene, ester, and ketone, and the trace alcohol does not affect human health.

Due to the limited forest resources in our country, the pollution problems caused by papermaking are difficult to solve in a short time. If the paper is replaced with paper instead of plastic packaging, it is neither realistic nor environmentally friendly. A complete ban on plastic packaging will cause greater pollution.