Background:
China's packaging industry is gargantuan, with over 200,000 manufacturers, involved in the production of tens of thousands of product categories. 80% of China's packaging industry is still producing low-end packages, which are unable to meet low-carbon packaging requirements.
In order rectify this situation, China publicized the green packaging national standard to regulate the industry, clarify definitions and assessment standards and encourage industries to update techniques, upgrade the industrial structure and align with international best practices.
Reference: Interpretation of Method and Criteria for Green Packaging Assessment, SAMR [1]
As revealed by the No. 6 National Standard Notice [2], SAMR and SAC (Standardization and Administration Committee) released 173 national standards on May 10th, 2019, including the first green packaging recommended national standard, GB/T 37422-2019 Method and Criteria for Green Packaging Assessment [3].
GB/T 37422-2019 Method and Criteria for Green Packaging Assessment will affect the whole packaging industry and applies to nearly all the packages produced by manufacturers, including wooden packages, paper packages, plastic packages, metal packages, glass packages and compound material packages.
According to the drafting explanation [4] of this assessment, the assessment indicators may be adjusted according to specific product traits in relevant sectors.
Main Content
This assessment regulates the terminology and definition, assessment principle, assessment methods and the format of the assessment report of green packaging. Assessment principles will focus on substantiating impact on environmental safety, etc.
As stipulated within the assessment methods, green packaging refers to packages that are manufactured using the least resources and energy and which reduce to a minimum the impact on human health and the environment throughout the package lifecycle.
Attached below are the major assessment principles used to evaluate packages. Packages are assigned a score on a scale from 1-100 (full score: 100 points).