Plastic covered with paper? Pick up the disposable paper lunch box of "fake low-carbon real threat".

Find out everything about toxic plastic.

"Little fresh", "INS style" and "Log style" is the first impression of the disposable paper lunch box to most friends, and it is also the magic weapon that sweeps the takeout market. Today, I'm going to talk to you about this hot "environmental star" in the takeout industry.

Is the lunch box made of natural paper pulp really environmentally friendly and non-toxic? I'm not sure about that!

Figure | Network

The difficult degradability of plastics and the problems caused by the release of plasticizers and other harmful substances under various dietary conditions threaten the ecological environment and human health to a certain extent.

In order to enhance the image and retain the source of customers, more and more businesses choose disposable paper lunch boxes that seem to be burden-free to the environment and the human body, instead of disposable plastic lunch boxes. According to our usual understanding, paper disposable lunch boxes, compared with plastic lunch boxes, should not cause pollution to the environment, but also have the advantages of renewable use of raw materials.

It sounds like the paper lunch box is quite reliable.

But--

How can a good story go smoothly? Various statements about whether the paper lunch box is true or false or exaggerated come with the order quantity--

"is a smooth and waterproof film inside a paper lunch box carcinogenic paraffin?"

"will the coating in the paper lunch box get on the food?"

In fact, because of the waterproof and oil-proof properties needed to carry food, the production process of paper lunch boxes is more complicated than that of plastic lunch boxes.

The complicated and tedious production process has caused more secondary pollution in the production process, and is the waterproof and oil-proof processing technology-"surface coating / gel plating" safe? What's more, it needs to be verified.

At present, the film coating process is the most common process for making all kinds of disposable paper lunch boxes, in which the film is bonded by food accessible paper and polyethylene film through thermal fusion technology, so that the film is attached to the surface of the carton. It is processed through four processes: printing, die-cutting and molding.

An e-commerce platform takes the characteristics of the film as the selling point on the detailed introduction page of the paper lunch box.

Figure | Network

Healthy and harmless? Fake!

Food safety risk of paper lunch box

Compared with the thermoplastic lunch box, the film coating process used in the disposable film lunch box is tedious, from the selection of raw materials to the production process, there is a higher food safety risk.

Statistics of determination results of lead, aluminum, cadmium, mercury, phthalate esters and fluorescent substances in paper tableware

Picture | Xu Chao, Zhang Zhi, Yang Xuejun, Wang Weishan. Detection and analysis of three typical risk substances in paper tableware [J]. China Paper Co., Ltd., 2021. 42 (12): 33-36.?

# raw materials #

# additives #

# Printing inks and organic solvents

# how dangerous are these "transferable substances"? #

Packaging transfer refers to the residues in food packaging or additives to improve performance, because they are not closely bound to each other, so like ordinary plastic lunch boxes, they will spread from the film layer of the paper lunch box to the inner surface in contact with the food, and then be dissolved or dissolved, thus existing in the food. Therefore, the residual chemicals in disposable paper lunch boxes will be released into the food as the time goes on.

The chemical transfer of disposable lunch boxes was studied, and the chemical transfer of different types of disposable lunch boxes under acetic acid (simulated general vinegar), ethanol (simulated alcohol food) and different water temperature (simulated food with different temperature) was tested.

Comparison of chemical migration of 5 kinds of disposable tableware in alcohol / acid / water (slide to see more)

Picture | Zhang Yong. Study on the law of total chemical migration of disposable tableware and its risk assessment [D]. Xi'an University of Technology, 2016.

Environmental star? Fake!

The risk of environmental pollution caused by paper lunch boxes

Paper lunch box VS plastic lunch box, we invited professional review-simplified life cycle assessment matrix.

Picture | Chen Shiming, Liu Zhengqian. Study on Life cycle Assessment of plastic and Paper Packaging Materials [J]. Journal of Nanchang Aviation Industry, 2000

As we all know, the biggest difference between paper and plastic is that the former is easy to decompose while the latter cannot. However, recycling is only a link, and if we make a comprehensive comparison of the whole cycle of the product "from cradle to grave", as shown in the table above, in the stage of raw material acquisition and product production, the environmental pollution caused by paper lunch boxes is far more serious than that of plastic lunch boxes.

Not only that, disposable coated tableware because of its paper-plastic composite packaging characteristics, from the material itself recycling feasibility point of view, the technical difficulty is too high, recycling needs to separate the paper and the film, and does not make recycling easier because of the easy degradability of the paper base.

The use of incineration, will release a large number of greenhouse gases, but also contrary to the production and sales of the "low-carbon" banner. Therefore, from the whole process of production to recycling and disposal, the use of disposable paper lunch boxes is no more environmentally friendly than disposable plastic lunch boxes.

New materials? Fake!

Paper packaging is no different from plastic.

Plastic packaging materials have been widely used all over the world because of their low cost, light weight and good durability. However, as people pay more and more attention to environmental protection, the call for new packaging materials is becoming louder and louder, and there seems to be more and more sounds of paper instead of plastic.

Picture | Yan Yufei. Life cycle assessment and analysis of disposable plastic water cup and coated paper cup [J]. Environmental Science and Management, 2011 (6)

However, throughout the whole life cycle from the production of disposable coated paper lunch boxes and plastic lunch boxes to recycling, it is not difficult to find. Its life cycle is similar, pollution is similar-to some extent, coated paper lunch box is not in another form of plastic?

Conclusion

No matter disposable plastic tableware or disposable carton coated paper tableware, disposable tableware is the "occasional bomb" of our healthy diet and beautiful environment.

Replacing plastic with paper is not the best solution to plastic pollution (remember the happiness of milk tea taken away by paper straws), and we can't always hope to replace one material with another without considering the risk of consequences. The real solution to plastic pollution is to change our "disposable" lifestyle and replace disposable use with reuse.

More and more beverage stores bring their own cup discounts, gradually becoming a "green life" new fashion. The use of reusable tableware is not only for our declining resources and environment, but also for our own health, reduce the use of disposable tableware, start from the next time bring your own tableware!

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