The takeaway packaging will consume about 2.31 million tonnes in 2018

In recent years, the vigorous development of the Internet take-out market has brought great convenience to people's life, but the ensuing large-scale take-away packaging has caused a heavy burden on the environment.

According to the "Research Report on Third-party Catering Delivery Market in China 2016" released by Bida Consultation, in 2016, the largest single user of take-out in China was 16-20 yuan, accounting for 33.6% of the total, while the single users consuming 11-30 yuan accounted for 83.1%. Based on the above assumptions, the average spending per unit is 20 yuan. In 2018, there will be a total of 33 billion single orders, with an average of about 70 grams for each takeaway package and about 2.31 million tons for takeaway packaging in 2018.

Take-out packaging mainly includes lunch boxes, cutlery and bags. Lunch boxes are mainly divided into foam lunch boxes, paper lunch boxes and other general categories. Among them, the low price of the foam lunch box is more common in some small vendors; the overall pollution of the paper lunch box is serious and the price is high; the process of using the lunch box may absorb moisture; the ordinary plastic lunch box gradually becomes the market due to the advantages of low cost, simple production and good performance of mainstream. 

Ordinary plastic lunch boxes, tableware is the main component of EPS, which is non-degradable common plastics and one of the major pollutants that cause "white pollution." So, in our daily life, we should pay more attention to the EPS recycling.

In the future, the development of biodegradable plastic takeaway and courier packaging materials is one of the fundamental ways to solve the growing "white pollution" problem. Biodegradable plastics are polymers that undergo biodegradation under the action of microorganisms in nature (bacteria, fungi, etc.). The final product is carbon dioxide, water and other environmentally friendly small molecules. Currently, these types of materials are not widely used in takeaway packaging and courier packaging.

For the sustainable development of the environment, promote the application of biodegradable plastics is the trend of the times, and foam containers recycling is also a good way. The government should play an active role in policies, regulation, publicity and market guidance, and should comprehensively use tax incentives and economic subsidies to support the development, production and sales of biodegradable plastic packaging materials.

Plastic do harm to the ocean which should be pay more attention

On December 30, according to the BBC report, the United Nations has issued a warning that millions of tons of plastic garbage into the ocean every year, and is causing "irreparable damage", marine life is facing a tremendous threat. Lisa Svensson, UN marine director, said: "This is a global crisis and we are destroying the marine ecosystem."

But how does this happen? What kind of harm would these plastic rubbish cause?

To the best of our knowledge, plastic was not widely used until about 60-70 years ago, but it immediately changed everything from clothing, cooking, food and beverage to product design, engineering and retail. There are many different types of plastics. One of their greatest strengths is their long design life, and almost all plastic products now exist in some form.

In July of this year, Roland Geyer, an industrial ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara and his colleagues published a paper in Science of Progress that calculates what humans have so far done all plastic is 8.3 billion tons. Approximately 6.3 billion tons of these are now plastic wastes, and 79% of these plastic wastes are disposed of in landfills or in the natural environment. And plastic recycling such as polystyrene recycling is little. This huge waste is driven by modern life. In modern life, plastic is made into many "disposable" items, from drink bottles, diapers to cutlery and cotton swabs.

Beverage bottles are one of the most common plastic trash. In 2016, about 480 billion plastic bottles were sold globally, reaching 1 million bottles per minute. Of these, 110 billion bottles are produced by beverage giant Coca-Cola Company. Many countries are considering measures to reduce plastic bottle consumption. Proposals from Britain include a deposit return plan and the improvement of free drinking water supply in major cities, including London.

About 10 million tons of plastic disappear in the ocean each year. In 2010, scientists from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and the University of Georgia estimated then that this figure would be 8 million tonnes and it is projected to increase to 9.1 million tonnes by 2015. The same study, published in the journal Science in 2015, investigated the handling of marine plastic waste in 192 coastal countries, showing that Asian countries make up 13 of the 20 countries that discharge the largest plastic wastes.