From Recycling Bottlenecks to Digital Empowerment: 2022 Packaging Industry Summit Forum Highlights Green Transition

As the economy evolves and environmental pressures mount worldwide, consumers are asking for packaging that is greener and uses resources more efficiently. Conventional plastic packaging is no longer aligned with market needs, while China's unfolding policies on environmental protection, green development and degradable plastics are steadily steering the country's plastics packaging sector toward a greener path.

At the 2022 Packaging Industry Summit Forum, hosted recently by the China Packaging Federation, representatives from multiple packaging companies engaged in in-depth exchanges on sustainable development, digital construction and related topics.

Plastic recycling infrastructure remains incomplete

Ma Rongrong, Sustainability Director for Amcor Greater China, a leading flexible packaging player, stressed during a company practice-sharing session that pollution should not be blamed on plastic itself, but on poor recycling practices. In environmental terms, plastic packaging can actually have a smaller footprint than alternative materials.

Wang Daode, Chairman and General Manager of Zhejiang Chengde Technology Co., Ltd., candidly described the bottlenecks: many plastic products are laminated films that are hard to recycle or have limited recovery value; the recycling system is still incomplete and recovery rates are low; and insufficient value-chain collaboration keeps product development and application at a small scale.

Gong Jian, Sales Director at Jiangsu Caihua Packaging Group Co., Ltd., noted that flexible laminate recycling faces multiple barriers, including difficult separation and interference from dissimilar materials when addressing global plastic pollution and flexible packaging responses. For mono-material technologies, he called for higher-quality, lighter base films, alongside advances in film surface treatment, high-quality recycling processes for plastic flexible packaging, and auxiliary material development.

Innovation accelerates plastic packaging circularity

To tackle plastic recycling challenges, packaging companies are actively pursuing technological innovation and advancing packaging circularity on an ongoing basis.

Ma said reducing white pollution requires effective use and recovery, and that the opportunities created by sustainability should be seized. The company will work more closely with partners to expand packaging recycling. Since 2020, with support from the China Packaging Federation, Amcor (China) Investment Co., Ltd. has teamed up with upstream and downstream industry players to launch China's first sustainable development and environmental protection initiative and related activities for the packaging sector, urging peers to begin at the source and consider recyclability during design.

Wang Daode used the “same-material easy-to-recycle solution” as an example to present progress in functional polyethylene R&D. The effort explores a shift from multi-plastic and reduced-plastic approaches toward same-plastic structures, aiming to meet downstream packaging barrier requirements as fully as possible.

Gong Jian said that, in light of current market and industry conditions, his company is also exploring innovation pathways and has introduced a “functional film project and high-barrier mono-material solution.” The solution focuses on films designed for closed-loop recycling, with goals of lowering total costs, improving film performance, reducing plastic and adhesive use, and shortening production processes. He also highlighted additional new materials, including an innovative mono-material structure for high-barrier flexible packaging: ultra-high-barrier, high-heat-seal PP metallized film and transparent ultra-high-barrier heat-seal PP film within the PP series and related materials. Combining barrier and heat-seal layers into one, these materials can serve the inner or middle layer of packaging with ultra-high barrier demands and are especially suited to replace aluminum foil.

Wen Bo, President of Liaoning Dongsheng Group, said degradable plastics have substantial potential and are currently driven mainly by policy, with governments at all levels intensifying plastic pollution control. As the public gradually accepts plastic restriction rules, leading players such as foreign-funded enterprises and chain brands have already set examples. Dongsheng Group plans to build, through self-development or M&A, an industrial internet cloud platform connecting customers and factories, strengthen integrated service capabilities, and explore a path forward for packaging companies through environmental protection and digitalization.

Low-carbon green becomes a must for companies

Under the “dual carbon” goals, low-carbon green growth serves both as a way for companies to meet social responsibilities and as a development strategy aligned with the demands of the times.

Wang Chuanlong, Director of the Packaging Research Institute at Sichuan Yibin Plus Packaging Materials Co., Ltd., said smart development is an innovation theme for the industry. The company has explored this area for years with notable results and is now building a smart packaging ecological value system through multi-dimensional efforts.

Zhang Qigang, Technical Director of Henan Yinjinda Holding Group Co., Ltd., proposed embedding green products, green production processes, circular resource use and green post-use treatment into production philosophy. Citing the “application of rPETG new environmentally friendly low-carbon label materials,” he said the company follows source-based green design, and its carbon footprint report shows energy-saving and emission-reduction goals have been achieved. It hopes to further green its production processes for low-carbon shared benefits. In the future, it will focus on lightweight easy-to-recycle labels, crystallizable labels, eco-friendly water-based inks and recycled polyester labels, targeting the industry pain point of separating bottles from labels. The company will continue to respond to national calls and, based on full product life cycle assessment, build a green development system with clear system boundaries.

Chen Liping, Chairman of Anhui Fengyuan Biotechnology Co., Ltd., analyzed the outlook for biological materials in green packaging. He believes the bioeconomy is poised for an explosive period, and the company is committed to efficiently using straw as a biomass feedstock. In line with relevant national requirements, it uses biotechnology to process and manufacture bioenergy and biological material products, replacing conventional plastics and chemical fibers with polylactic acid, and developing the biomass industry with bio-based polyamino acid and bio-based polycarbonate. On this basis, renewable resources can be utilized and converted, turning the “black gold economy” of oil and coal into a “green gold economy” of biomass processing, advancing agriculture through industrial methods, achieving sustainable development, and supporting China's high-standard agricultural construction and black soil protection.

Digital reform unlocks new industrial momentum

The packaging industry is widely known to be large in scale but not yet strong. Paper packaging companies are squeezed both by upstream paper mill monopolies and downstream purchasing pressure, making cost reduction and efficiency improvement an urgent priority for many players.

Zhou Mingxing, Assistant to the President of Zhejiang Dongjing Technology Co., Ltd., shared how the company created a blue ocean in a red ocean market through digital reform. He emphasized that paper packaging is “a standby for enterprises and a must-have for the industry,” with a huge total market and high potential value from digital transformation. By deepening the use of digital technology in production, operations and marketing, and achieving networked, digital and intelligent upgrades at both the paper packaging value-chain and enterprise levels, companies can innovate at lower cost, empower the paper packaging industry and drive its transformation. The company grew against the pandemic trend and achieved notable results in order-taking models, informatization, production management and logistics management. Next, it will use internet approaches and digital tools to leverage digital technology's empowering and leading role in packaging, improve the paper packaging ecosystem, and help SMEs cut costs, raise efficiency and increase value.

Facing new challenges for paper packaging plants in the post-pandemic era, Zhou Tianhai, Director of the Smart Factory Division at Hubei Jingshan Light Industry Machinery Co., Ltd., explored value reconstruction from an intelligent, economical, digital and connected perspective, and introduced future trends and intelligent transformation paths for paper packaging plants. Addressing industry pain points and current conditions, he proposed holistic solutions including a 3D whole-plant intelligent planning scheme, a smart-software visualized operations control center, core intelligent equipment for the entire plant, and whole-plant intelligent logistics and non-standard automation equipment.

Jiang Changbo, President of Hunan University of Technology, said that raising the modernization level of China's packaging industrial system should focus on a coordinated development pattern and vigorously optimize regional industry layout; accelerate industrial restructuring and strengthen enterprises' leading role in the industrial ecosystem and control over key value-chain nodes; enhance value-chain resilience and promote strategic coordination between upstream and downstream; advance industrial clusters and form leading packaging manufacturing clusters; and boost independent innovation, deep digital empowerment and cooperation mechanisms. He stressed that building a modern packaging industrial system is a shared pursuit of all “packaging people” and an inevitable requirement for China's journey toward becoming a “packaging power.”

This article is reposted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-379385.html