The Advantages and Applications of Bamboo as a Green Packaging Material

Keywords: Green Packaging, Bamboo, Packaging Materials

introduction

With the increasing awareness of environmental protection in the entire society, “green packaging” has received increasing attention. From a technical point of view, green packaging refers to an environment-friendly packaging that is made of natural plants and related minerals as raw materials and is harmless to the environment, human health, and is conducive to recycling, degradation, and sustainable development. European regulations define three directions for packaging and environmental protection:

——Reducing materials from the upstream of production, the less packing materials, the lighter the better;
- For secondary use, such as bottles, first light and can be used multiple times;
- To be able to add value, through the recycling of waste, to form new packages or to burn waste, and generate heat for heating and heating. This article intends to discuss the packaging of bamboo.

1、It is imperative for bamboo to replace wood

At present, wood has become a common main natural packaging material. However, in China, the limitations and deficiencies of wood packaging have also become increasingly apparent as the packaging industry continues to expand.

First, China’s forest area accounts for only 3.9% of the world’s total. Forest reserves are less than 3% of the world’s total. Forest coverage rate is 13.92%. Per capita forest area and per capita reserves are lower than the world’s average. 120 and 121, the forest coverage rate is 142. China imports a large amount of wood and its products every year to meet the needs of the market. However, relying on imported forest products to address the lack of total demand in China is not a long-term strategy. First, the country’s economic strength is still not strong, and it is difficult to produce more than 10 billion foreign exchange each year to import forest products; second, the international timber market is unpredictable and dependent on imports. It will make our country extremely passive.

Second, because some tree species are vulnerable to pests and diseases, as packaging materials are subject to processing conditions and process restrictions, the cost of import and export trade is too high. In September 1998, the U.S. government issued a temporary animal and plant quarantine decree that introduced new inspection and quarantine regulations for wood packaging and bedding materials imported into the United States. The wood packaging for China’s exports to the United States must be accompanied by a certificate issued by the Chinese official quarantine office to prove that the wood packaging has been subjected to heat treatment, fumigation, or anti-corrosion treatment prior to entering the United States, or import is prohibited. Later, Canada, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the European Union and other countries and regions also followed suit, which virtually increased the high cost of fumigation treatment or chemical insecticidal treatment of export enterprises in China.

Once again, a large amount of wood harvesting will undoubtedly have an adverse impact on the environment. At the same time, the speed of tree planting and afforestation is far from meeting the market demand for timber. Here is an example: According to statistics, the average annual production of 1.2 billion shirts nationwide, the use of paper in the box amounted to 240,000 tons, equivalent to cutting off 1.68 million thick trees. If you count the amount of paper used for packaging of all commodities and the trees to be felled, it is undoubtedly an alarming figure.

Therefore, other green packaging materials must be developed and replaced as soon as possible to replace wood packaging materials. Bamboo is undoubtedly the material of choice.

2. Application of Bamboo in Packaging

China is a large bamboo country with 35 genera and nearly 400 species of bamboo plants. It has a long history of cultivation and utilization. Regardless of the number of bamboo resources, the area and volume of bamboo forests, or the production and processing of bamboo products, China ranks first among the world's bamboo nations and has the reputation of “the world’s bamboo kingdom”. In comparison, bamboo has a higher yield than trees, has a short material cycle, is easy to mold, is widely used, and is much cheaper than wood.

The use of bamboo as a packaging material has been ancient, especially in rural areas. With the increasing awareness of environmental protection, bamboo packaging will gradually replace wooden packaging between urban and rural areas and import and export trade, playing an increasingly important role.

Bamboo used for food and pharmaceutical packaging

Bamboo has its own antibacterial properties, and its antibacterial properties make it possible for bamboo to grow without insects and rot, without using any pesticide. The use of bamboo materials for the production of cutlery or food packaging containers not only has no worries for the supply of raw materials, but also has no pollution during the production and use of bamboo utensils or food packaging containers, which is conducive to environmental protection. At the same time, cutlery or food packaging containers made of bamboo still retain the unique natural fragrance, simple hue and firmness and softness characteristic of bamboo.

The application methods include the original ecological bamboo tube (wine, tea, etc.), bamboo ware (fruit plate, fruit box, medicine box) and so on.

Bamboo used for daily-use packaging

The light and easy-to-shape characteristics of bamboo make it possible to complete packaging tasks in every aspect of daily life. Not only can it be reused, but also in the packaging design, according to the different characteristics of the packaging object, applying carving, ironing, painting, knitting and other decorative techniques to improve the cultural quality of the packaging, while making the packaging both protective and aesthetic, collection The function.

The main application methods are bamboo weaving (sheets, blocks, and silk), such as various boxes, cages, vegetable baskets, storage mats and various packaging boxes.
Bamboo used for transport packaging

As early as the late 1970s, China's Sichuan Province had used "bamboo and wood" to pack and transport several tons of heavy machinery.

The rise and development of bamboo plywood has opened up a rather new way for bamboo use. It is characterized by wear resistance, corrosion resistance, insect resistance, high strength, and good toughness, and its performance is much better than other wood-based panels. The weight of bamboo is light, but the texture is unusually hard. According to the determination, the shrinkage of bamboo is very small, but the elasticity and toughness are very high, the tensile strength of the straight grain reaches 170 MPa, and the compressive strength of the straight grain reaches 80 MPa. In particular, the rigid bamboo has a horizontal grain tensile strength of 280 MPa, which is almost half that of ordinary steel. However, if the tensile strength is calculated in terms of unit mass, the tensile strength of bamboo is 2.5 times that of steel. It is not difficult to see that bamboo plywood can be used as a transport packaging material instead of wood.