Huai'an Paper Cup Printing Compliance Watch: Market Gaps Surface as June 1 National Standard Nears

Industry Watch Brief

In Huai'an, Jiangsu, a reporter compared paper cups commonly found on store shelves and found that three supermarket products—Miaojie, Ke'aike and A—were covered with checks or patterns across nearly the entire cup body. That design conflicts with an incoming rule that prohibits printing within 15 mm below the rim and 10 mm above the base. By contrast, official-use paper cups obtained from one organization met the requirement: apart from the organization's text printed in the middle, no printing marks appeared in the restricted zones.

The reporter recently learned that China's national standard for single-use paper cups is expected to be officially implemented on June 1 this year. Compared with the earlier industry standard, the new rules set higher requirements for raw materials, additives, finished products, packaging and printing. They explicitly ban fluorescent whitening agents for whitening, recycled materials as production feedstock, and benzene-based solvent inks for printing. The previous day, the reporter bought a group of single-use paper cups commonly chosen by consumers and ran experimental checks against several of the new requirements.

Printing standards for paper cups on sale

mostly fall short of the new rules

The new standard states that no printing should appear within 15 mm from the cup rim down the body, or within 10 mm from the cup bottom up the body. The reporter's comparison found a clear rationale: the 15 mm zone at the rim is where the mouth touches while drinking, while the 10 mm zone near the bottom relates to how paper cups are nested for sale; the base can rub against the inside of another cup, so avoiding printing there also limits contact with printing materials.

The three common supermarket cups bought by the reporter—Miaojie, Ke'aike and A—were all printed with checks or patterns over the full body, conflicting with the prohibited printing zones. Their material labels also told only part of the story: each listed the paper material but did not provide safety information about the printing materials.

The official-use paper cups from one organization, however, complied. Apart from the organization's printed text in the middle, the cups showed no printing marks within the areas restricted by the new rules.

Cup water takes on a paper-and-ink smell

After opening, none of the three supermarket cups had an obviously pungent odor, but a close sniff revealed a faint printed-paper smell. Under a light source, their paper appeared fairly uniform, with no obvious impurities and an off-white tone. The official-use cups from one organization had a softer body and a stark white paper color.

When water at 100 degrees Celsius was poured in, the three supermarket cups stayed firm, while the official-use cups quickly went limp, as if they would dissolve in the hot water. A staff member at the organization said they usually use two cups stacked together.

Some experts have cautioned that water steeped in a paper cup should not be consumed. In the reporter's test, hot water brought out a paper-and-ink odor from the cups. Five minutes later, the reporter poured the water away and refilled the cups with plain boiled water; the scent that emerged was then simply the fresh smell of plain boiled water.

— This article is reposted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362102.html