The influence of the hottest Green Packaging Barri

The impact of green packaging barriers on China's product exports and Countermeasures Since China's entry into WTO, non-tariff barriers have become the main barriers in international trade, and the green packaging system is an important part of it, which has increasingly become an important policy measure for foreign trade in some countries, especially developed countries. According to statistics, nearly US $24billion of export commodities in China are affected by the failure to meet the packaging requirements every year, a considerable part of which is caused by the packaging not meeting the green requirements. Therefore, in order to overcome green packaging barriers, adapt to the requirements of global environmental protection and achieve sustainable development, it is necessary to understand foreign regulations and restrictive measures related to packaging, improve the packaging of China's export products, and promote the normal development of foreign trade

I. the meaning of green packaging barrier

green packaging system refers to that developed countries have formulated high and relatively perfect standards for packaging materials, including the system of waste recycling, reuse and regeneration. It is an environmental protection measure taken to prevent packaging materials and their packaging waste from causing harm to the environment, or packaging containers with unreasonable structure may damage the health of users. Green packaging system can effectively solve environmental problems, is the best way to achieve the coordinated development of packaging and environment, and conforms to the world trend of environmental protection. However, this system is often used by some countries as a standard for whether to allow imports to achieve the purpose of restricting imports, and has become a green packaging barrier. With its external rationality and internal concealment, green packaging barrier has become a kind of trade barrier widely used in developed countries

Second, the main packaging laws and regulations faced by China's product exports

countries have introduced different packaging laws and regulations according to their own needs, which can be summarized in the following aspects:

1 Regulations on packaging materials

the requirements of developed countries for packaging materials are developing towards energy conservation, low consumption, pollution prevention, pest prevention and high function. Recyclable ecological packaging materials are the focus of research and development in various countries. For example, Italy has banned the use of non degradable plastic sundry bags in its territory since 1991; The German government prohibits the use of PVC and only allows the use of recycled packaging materials such as polyethylene, PE or polyester; The United States, New Zealand, the Philippines and other countries prohibit the use of straw as packaging materials; The United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada and other countries and regions require that wooden packaging must be fumigated, antiseptic and other treatments before entering the country, otherwise it will be destroyed as required

2. The EU has been setting obstacles to the import of foreign products through the legislation of product packaging and labeling. It has repeatedly reiterated that product packaging must have environmental labels and put forward very specific requirements for food packaging. For example, the EU requires all countries to mark the variety, origin and fishing area on the packaging of retail fish and aquatic products from January 1, 2002, and requires that the description mark indicate whether the fish and aquatic products are ocean or inland fishing products, or artificially cultivated products and processed products. If they are ocean fishing products, they must also indicate the fishing area. For processed food, French law stipulates that accurate product instructions must be printed in French on the outer package of food packaging. The EU also requires ecological labels on imported products such as textiles. At present, the most popular ecological label in the EU is Oko tex Standard 100, which is the passport for textiles to enter the European textile market. CE mark is the pass for industrial products to enter the EU market

3 Regulations on packaging recycling or reuse

in order to promote the recycling and reuse of packaging, many countries have formulated relevant laws and regulations. For example, Germany stipulated in July 1995 that the legal quota of packaging recycling is 8O%, and requires that 80% - 9O% of this total amount must be recycled. At the same time, it is stipulated that the transportation packaging should be 100% recycled, and the sales packaging should be recycled by the producers and sellers according to the principle of who produces who recycles and who sells who recycles. The Danish government passed a decree in 1997, banning the use of cans to package beverages, and stipulating that beer and non-alcoholic beverages must use reusable packaging; For imported beverages with non reusable packaging, a packaging deposit must be paid to ensure the recycling of packaging. The UK stipulates that from 2000, 6O% of industrial packaging and 35% of household packaging will be recycled

4. Regulations on Levying product packaging tax (fee) on product manufacturers

China's plastic extruder market has made great progress and breakthroughs. If enterprises use all recyclable packaging materials in the production process, they can be exempted from taxes; If recyclable materials are used in the packaging of products, lower taxes will be levied; If the product packaging uses non reusable or recycled materials, a higher tax will be levied. For example, the law of the state of New York in the United States stipulates an additional tax of 0.02 cents for products that use non refillable containers

Third, the impact of green packaging system on China's product export

the green packaging system established in developed countries is conducive to the protection of resources and environment and human health, and is conducive to the development of circular economy. However, the gap between some stringent packaging requirements and China's standards has also brought a great negative impact on China's export trade

1. The decline in trade exports has caused great economic losses

first of all, China's packaging materials are backward, difficult to handle, low recyclability, and serious environmental pollution to El countries, which has caused many products in China to be unable to export El due to packaging problems. Secondly, the environmental protection laws and regulations of Europe and the United States have put forward higher requirements for animal and plant quarantine, which stipulates that the packaging produced by some natural materials should be subject to sanitation and animal and plant quarantine to prevent the transmission of animal and plant diseases and pests. China does not pay attention to the above requirements, which affects the export of relevant products. In addition, China's mechanical and electrical products, such as radios, televisions, lamps and lanterns, are mainly sold to Europe, America, Japan and other countries and regions. Since 1996, the customs of EU countries have the right to refuse the entry of products without CE mark, which makes it more difficult for China's mechanical and electrical products to export el

2. The sales cost of export products increases and the competitiveness decreases

due to the adoption of advanced technology and the limitation of the production scale of enterprises, green packaging products tend to cost more than traditional packaging products, so they do not have price advantages when competing with traditional packaging products. This directly leads to the disadvantages of green packaging products in market competition, and seriously affects the confidence of enterprises in developing green packaging

3. As a developing country, China has a considerable distance from developed countries in terms of capital, technology and producers' awareness of environmental protection. When our packaging fails to meet the standards of other countries, or the cost increases to unprofitable in order to meet the standards, we will face withdrawal from the market. IS014000 international standard of environmental management system stipulates that any country covering the whole industrial chain of new materials can refuse to import products that do not meet the standard, so that products that do not meet the standard are excluded from international trade. China's environmental labeling system has fewer types of products, so the market share of some products is not high

IV. reasons why Chinese products encounter green packaging barriers

1 The concept of green packaging is vague

green packaging is often one-sided understood as the greening of packaging products. Packaging products made of biodegradable materials are wrongly regarded as green packaging, regardless of whether the production of packaging products causes environmental pollution and resource waste, and whether packaging products can be reused after use

2. A serious lack of information

many Chinese enterprises have a serious lack of information about the international market or export destination market, and have limited understanding of the requirements of the importing country on packaging materials, packaging standards and packaging specifications, resulting in the packaging of export products unable to meet the requirements of the target market

3 my product only needs 5kn tension The packaging technology of some products in China is backward.

fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and flowers are the bulk products exported from El in China. However, the traditional cartons are mostly used for the transportation and packaging of El, and the transportation boxes and turnover boxes with good permeability of high-density polyethylene are not widely used, which not only increases the transportation cost And the rate of decay and loss during transportation is amazing

v. measures taken by the inspection and quarantine department for Chinese enterprises to overcome green packaging barriers

1 In terms of government behavior

(1) our government should first strengthen the environmental protection regulations and standards of major developed countries?? Formulate green packaging laws and regulations, in line with international standards, and narrow the gap with developed countries in the level of environmental protection

(2) establish a set of restraint mechanism that can limit the production and consumption of garbage packaging. We can learn from the experience of Germany, levy taxes on producers and users, and implement the principle of "who pollutes, who governs"

(3) strengthen environmental protection education and enhance people's awareness of green economy. The government can use various media and public facilities to educate people about environmental protection, so as to improve the national awareness of environmental protection and eliminate packaging pollution from the source of production

(4) the government should establish and improve the environmental marking system of wear-resistant friction testing machines in China, mainly through the wearing layer of samples and friction paper, actively carry out certification, strengthen international mutual certification, publicize the IS014000 system to the industry, and encourage enterprises to apply for IS014000 certification

(5) make full use of relevant WTO rules to protect national interests. China should actively participate in the discussion and negotiation of the relationship between environment and trade in the international community, and participate in the formulation of international environment and trade rules; We should make full use of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism to prevent the distortion of trade restrictions, avoid trade disputes and break through green trade barriers

2. In terms of enterprise behavior

(1) expand the publicity of the concepts of green products, green marketing, cleaner production, environmental signs and so on in small and medium-sized enterprises, improve the green awareness of enterprises, and make small and medium-sized enterprises consciously take into account economic benefits, social benefits and environmental benefits in production and business activities

(2) actively obtain environmental labels from developed countries, so that more export commodities can surpass green barriers and obtain international permits for product exports

(3) enterprises should implement cleaner production, apply the principles of environmental science and ecological science to the selection of raw materials and the processing, manufacturing, circulation and use of products until recycling or waste disposal, and form a perfect pollution-free and pollution-free environmental management system, so as to ensure the cleanness and pollution-free of packaging, improve the competitiveness of products, and avoid green barriers in trade

(4) pay attention to the reduction of packaging materials, and try to reduce the use of packaging materials without excessive packaging under the condition of ensuring that all functions of packaging are met. Strengthen the research on the technology and equipment of recycling and utilization of manufacturing packaging waste, so as to speed up the recycling and reuse of waste and improve the recycling and reuse rate