The importance and urgency of green packaging
With the increasing recognition of people’s environmental protection awareness, the state’s continuous increase in environmental protection legislation and supervision, as well as the “green trade barriers” implemented by developed countries and the impact of foreign low-tar, high-green cigarettes on the domestic market, green and health Has become China's irresistible development trend of tobacco. In tobacco packaging, companies in the industry are increasingly aware of the necessity and urgency of using and developing environmentally friendly products, and are actively implementing their own actions.

The “greening” of tobacco and packaging requires that manufacturers design products, select materials, select technologies, finalize printing processes, adopt packaging methods, select transportation and warehousing methods, dispose of waste, and consume products. Safety, hygiene and environmental protection must be achieved to minimize the negative impact on consumers and the environment. Here are some of the most closely linked aspects of environmental protection with cigarette packs. Briefly describe the main manifestations of environmental protection in these links.

Aluminized cigarette packs rushed into the white card, soft bag steadily
In the field of paper with the most obvious use of cigarette packs, there are currently three trends, namely, the steady increase of white card packs, the rapid growth of aluminum-plated cigarette packs, and the use of coated paper and aluminized paper-based soft pack cigarettes. Faster growth.

Among them, the development of vacuum aluminum coated cigarette packs is particularly prominent. Due to its great environmental protection advantages, coupled with outstanding external effects and cost advantages, aluminum-coated cigarette packs are playing an increasingly important role in the tobacco packaging market in China, becoming the preferred choice for cigarette packs of tobacco companies. At present, aluminum-plated paper has been applied to China, Hongtashan, Liqun, Nanjing, Honghe, Dahongying, Hongjinlong, Huanghelou, Hongqiqu, Septwolves, Yipinmei, Suyan, Sequoia, and Golden Mango. On famous cigarette labels such as Jiaozi, among them, Hangzhou Cigarette Factory, Nanjing Cigarette Factory, Xuzhou Cigarette Factory, Wuhan Tobacco Group, Hongta Group and other aluminum-plated cigarette packs all reached more than 100,000 large boxes. According to incomplete statistics at the end of last year, the amount of aluminum-plated cigarette packs used at that time exceeded one million boxes, and the total amount of packaging paper was about 2.5 to 30,000 tons.

Among the new cigarette products launched in the past year, over 30% of products use aluminum-plated paper, such as the specially-made boutique “Baxi” of Qingzhou Cigarette Factory, the soft pack “Changbai Mountain” of Yanji Cigarette Factory, and the Hongta Group Changchun Cigarette Factory. The soft pack "Hundred Years of Ginseng", the "Good Day" for the soft pack of the Shenzhen Cigarette Factory, "Yi Pin Mei" (the Century Wind) for the Huaiyin Cigarette Factory, the "Diamond" (Guzui 120) for the Zhangjiakou Cigarette Factory, and the Hongta Group Dali Cigarette The factory's new realm “Maiden” and Longyan Cigarette Factory’s “Seven Penguins” (SP500) have adopted laser-transfer PVC film packaging cigarettes. The density of such PVC film materials is usually 4006 larger than that of BOPP. The cost is too high to be effectively recovered, and it is necessary to add some benzene-containing plasticizers in the production process, and such plasticizers often have certain toxicity; in addition, at a certain temperature, the film will be thermally decomposed. The release of part of the environment arrested gas, thereby affecting the operating environment and the health of workers. BOPP film has been developed into a mainstream material for food packaging because it has excellent packaging properties, can be recycled and pelletized, and does not produce dioxin and other harmful gases when incinerated. At home, the thickness of the current smoke film is generally 18- 22 um, in recent years, there has been a tendency to gradually replace it with a thin film. However, in Germany and European countries, the use of tobacco film with a thickness of 16 μm has been widely used.

Because the tipping paper used in tobacco packaging is in direct contact with the lips of the smoker, its printing ink and coating must be non-toxic and meet food hygiene standards. At present, the coated tipping paper has basically been withdrawn from the mainstream market and replaced with printed tipping paper. In recent years, with the growing demand for environmental protection and packaging of cigarette packaging, punched tipping paper has developed rapidly, and in particular, laser-tipped L tipping paper is expected to become an important development direction of the tipping paper in the future.

Water-based inks are highly favored for flexographic printing
In addition to using environmentally friendly materials, cigarette marking must be green. At present, besides the requirement for non-irritating, non-polluting and safer environmentally-friendly oils, tobacco plants also impose higher requirements on tobacco adhesives and coatings, and strictly limit benzene, toluene, xylene, and gas And other chemical substances pollute the environment.

In printing inks, currently China's printing industry is mainly using solvent-based inks, in which VOC (organic volatile matter) emissions are large, such as gravure inks still use a large number of low boiling, high volatility organic compounds as solvents, resulting in The generation of a large number of harmful gases in gravure printing; VOC and PCA in offset printing, as well as fountain solutions, cleaning waste liquids, etc. are also very likely to cause environmental pollution.

At present, water-based solvents, non-chemical composition of water-based ink is the only printing method in the United States FDA approved non-toxic environmentally friendly ink, and after years of development, has basically solved the difficult to use, the limitations of the substrate Difficulties such as sex, such as water-based gravure printing inks have achieved acceptance on major cigarette packs, and are waiting for the tobacco factory to mass produce. It can be foreseen that environment-friendly liquid inks and water-based inks will be the development direction of gravure inks and flexo inks in the future. Water-based inks, UV inks, and alcoholic inks are expected to gradually replace other types of inks and become the mainstream of the market.

At present, offset printing and gravure printing, which currently occupy the mainstream of cigarette pack printing, have achieved great breakthroughs in environmental protection. However, as a rising star, flexographic printing should have more environmental advantages and development prospects than traditional offset and gravure printing. This is mainly due to the use of non-toxic, non-polluting water-based inks for flexo printing, and its short plate-making cycle, high overlay accuracy, low price, low cost, and environmental protection. Although flexo printing has not been widely used in the cigarette pack printing field for a variety of reasons, it has shown good growth potential. Soft packs such as Red River Boutique 88, 99 have begun to use this environmentally friendly printing method.

Strictly design the source of packaging to ensure environmental protection
To do a good job in environmental protection this article, we must put a good seal on its source packaging design. At present, domestic cigarettes have been making excessive efforts in packaging processes and materials, ignoring the improvement of design standards. Packaging materials and packaging processes should be consistent with the design concept and style. If you are not committed to improving the level of packaging design, it is difficult to compete with packaging redesign and low-cost foreign cigarettes by relying solely on materials and technology. It is difficult to achieve a true sense of environmental protection. Only in packaging design, the environmental protection of packaging is fully valued, and a good visual, environmental and functional design concept is combined to achieve a high level of brand connotation and product image enhancement. It also minimizes the amount of materials used to ensure that the packaging is degradable, recyclable, reusable, and relatively safe and hygienic.

In addition, we can contribute to the selection of materials, improvement of printing processes, quality inspection of printed products, and recycling of cigarette packs. If low-weight, high-strength paper is used to reduce the use of resources, positioning holographic paperboard printing reduces the use of multiple channels of supply and demand and materials brought about by the first printing and hot press; advanced detection equipment is used to enter the factory. All raw materials and manufactured products are tracked and checked to ensure that the content of volatile chemicals in packaging and printing products can be effectively controlled.

Reprinted from: China Green Packaging Network