Globally, 42% of plastics are used in packaging, and most of them are used for single-use purposes only, so plastic pollution’s long-term and persistent problems in the ecosystem. The recycling rate of plastic is only 10%, which means that 90% of the plastic is incinerated, landfilled, or directly discarded into the natural environment. Plastics typically take 20 to 400 years, or more, to decompose. Decomposed plastic creates debris, or microplastics, that remain in the atmospheric circulation, in everything we do, from water to food and soil. The use of pulp molded packaging can break this negative cycle. Since the material is natural, its degradation rate is also very fast. After testing, whether in the open air or in a landfill, the pulp packaging can achieve serious or complete decomposition, greatly reducing the environmental pollution caused by the packaging.
The comparison between plastic packaging and pulp molding has the following characteristics
- The raw material of pulp molding is waste paper, which is easy to recycle and will not pollute the environment, which will be beneficial to the sale of the produced products. The raw material of plastic is mainly polystyrene, which needs to be degraded by by-products, and the recycling value is very low, causing serious pollution to the environment.
- Pulp molding is widely used. With the advancement of paper moulding technology, some products using plastic can be moulded using pulp.
- Pulp molding storage takes up less space than plastic, which can greatly reduce transportation and storage costs.
- Plastic friction is easy to generate static electricity, while pulp molding is not easy to generate static electricity, which plays a better role in protecting electronic products and household appliances.
- Food such as fruits will release moisture when stored, and the moisture can not be volatilized out of plastic products, which will easily lead to fruit rot and mildew, while paper products have good air permeability, and moisture can be volatilized to achieve anti-corrosion effect.
- The shock and impact resistance of paper products is comparable to that of plastic products. The protection function of plastic products for packaging is determined by the cushioning performance of its materials, while paper products are well protected by the geometric space structure and the elastic and comprehensive cushioning properties of the material itself.
