更環(huán)保的利樂枕設(shè)計(jì)，為環(huán)保而努力

The humble milk carton has been part of our lives for so long that it is easy to forget that it was a marvel when it first appeared in 1952. Tetra Pak’s technology made a billionaire of Hans Rausing, scion of the company’s Swedish founding family, who died last week at the age of 93.

不起眼的牛奶紙盒進(jìn)入我們的生活如此之久，以至于我們很容易忘記，它在1952年首次出現(xiàn)時(shí)曾被視為一個(gè)奇跡。利樂(Tetra Pak)的技術(shù)讓這家公司的瑞典創(chuàng)始家族的繼承人漢斯•勞辛(Hans Rausing)成為了億萬富翁。漢斯•勞辛上周去世，享年93歲。

The Tetra Pak cartons, made from layers of paperboard and polyethylene, soon displaced glass bottles because they were far lighter and could easily be stacked and distributed. Its aseptic carton, with a layer of aluminium foil that allowed heat-treated milk to remain fresh, followed in 1961.

由多層紙板和聚乙烯制成的利樂紙盒，很快就取代了玻璃瓶，因?yàn)樗鼈冚p盈得多，而且易于堆疊和分銷。1961年，利樂推出了無菌紙盒，其內(nèi)附一層鋁箔可以讓經(jīng)過熱處理的牛奶保持新鮮。

But every technology has drawbacks and Rausing died at the moment when those of plastic are becoming distressingly obvious. Landfills are stuffed with bottles and cartons, and trillions of pieces of plastic float in the world’s oceans. What happens to the 189bn Tetra Pak containers made last year as they are discarded?

但每一項(xiàng)技術(shù)都有缺點(diǎn)，在塑料的缺點(diǎn)令人苦惱地顯現(xiàn)出來的時(shí)候，勞辛離開了我們。垃圾填埋場堆滿了瓶子和紙盒，天量的塑料碎片漂浮在世界各地的海洋中。去年生產(chǎn)的1890億個(gè)利樂紙盒在被丟棄時(shí)發(fā)生了什么?

Carton makers such as Tetra Pak and SIG Combibloc of Germany are far from the only contributors to the ballooning volumes of packaging waste. In some ways, they are encouraging recycling. But the rise of the carton shows how complex and difficult is the environmental challenge.

利樂、德國SIG康美包(SIG Combibloc)等紙包裝制造商遠(yuǎn)非導(dǎo)致包裝垃圾數(shù)量激增的唯一原因。某種程度上，他們正在鼓勵(lì)回收利用。但紙包裝的興起顯示出環(huán)境挑戰(zhàn)是多么復(fù)雜和困難。

The case for cartons is simple: they may be better than the alternatives. They are easy to transport and a study for German carton makers found that they have 78 per cent less climate impact than glass bottles. They also contain 75 per cent paper and only about 20 per cent plastic.

選擇紙包裝的理由很簡單：它們可能比其他替代品更好。它們易于運(yùn)輸，而且一項(xiàng)針對德國紙包裝制造商的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，它們對氣候造成的影響比玻璃瓶要小78%。而且它們的成分75%是紙，只有約20%是塑料。

When collected and taken back to a specialist mill, they are also fairly recyclable. Their various layers separate out into paper, plastic and aluminium fibres when pulped in liquid, allowing the paper fibre to be mixed with virgin wood pulp and turned into cardboard boxes, tissues and the like.

當(dāng)被收集起來送回專門工廠時(shí)，它們也是比較容易循環(huán)再利用的。打成漿時(shí)，其各個(gè)分層可分離成紙、塑料和鋁纖維，然后可將紙纖維與原木漿混合，制成紙板箱、紙巾等產(chǎn)品。

This is the good news; the rest is less hopeful. First, recycling is far from universal even in Europe, which has a better record than the US. Only 47 per cent of materials from the 37bn beverage cartons made for European countries in 2016 were recycled.

這是好消息;其他消息就沒這么樂觀了。首先，即便在回收做得比美國好的歐洲，紙包裝的回收利用也遠(yuǎn)未達(dá)到普及的程度。2016年，在為歐洲國家生產(chǎn)的370億個(gè)飲料紙盒中，只有47%的原料被循環(huán)利用。

Cartons are also prone to a broader paradox — as economies advance, people tend to recycle more but also to consume more. Croatia’s overall recycling rate for packaging in 2016 was 55 per cent, compared with Germany’s 71 per cent, but the average German generated four times as much packaging waste as the average Croatian.

使用紙包裝還容易陷入一種更普遍的悖論——隨著經(jīng)濟(jì)進(jìn)步，人們往往會(huì)回收更多紙包裝，但同時(shí)也會(huì)消費(fèi)更多紙包裝。2016年，克羅地亞對包裝的總回收率為55%，德國為71%，但德國人均產(chǎn)生的包裝垃圾數(shù)量是克羅地亞人均水平的4倍。

This is a frightening prospect on a global scale. McKinsey & Co, the consultancy firm, estimates that China will comprise 28 per cent of the global packaging market by 2022 and emerging economies such as Vietnam suffer from widespread dumping not only of plastic bottles but of cartons.

從全球范圍看，這是一個(gè)可怕的前景。咨詢公司麥肯錫(McKinsey & Co)估計(jì)，到2022年，中國將占據(jù)全球包裝市場28%的份額，而越南等新興經(jīng)濟(jì)體還要承受塑料瓶、紙包裝等各種進(jìn)口垃圾的危害。

Second, paperboard is easier to recycle than the plastic, or the 4 per cent aluminium content of aseptic cartons. In theory, the plastic and aluminium fibres that emerge from the soup of old cartons can be turned to other uses — the metal can become material for roofing tiles, while the polymer can be melted into pellets for gas heating or steam.

其次，紙板比塑料或無菌紙包裝所含的4%的鋁更容易回收。理論上講，從舊紙包裝中提取的塑料和鋁纖維可以用于其他用途——鋁可以用作屋面瓦的材料，而塑料可以熔化成顆粒，用于燃?xì)夤峄蛘羝?/p>

In practice, this only happens patchily and, as one study put it, “complete recycling in the strict sense is currently notfeasiblefor beverage cartons”. A carton is carefully bonded and constructed, often with a plastic lid and a straw fixed to the side; what Tetra Pak has joined together is not easily put asunder.

在實(shí)踐中，這種回收利用并不完全，正如一項(xiàng)研究指出的，“對于飲料紙包裝，嚴(yán)格意義上的完全回收目前并不可行”。包裝紙盒的制作經(jīng)過了小心的粘合和構(gòu)造，常常有一個(gè)塑料蓋子以及一根固定在一側(cè)的吸管;利樂壓合在一起的包裝材料并不容易拆解開。

Consumer consciousness of plastic waste is rising sharply, thanks to campaigns against ocean pollution. But people still like the convenience of cartons and they offer many benefits, including access to fresh milk and juice in countries without sophisticated supply chains and refrigeration.

得益于反對海洋污染的運(yùn)動(dòng)，消費(fèi)者對塑料垃圾的環(huán)保意識正在大幅提升。但人們?nèi)韵矚g紙包裝的便利性，它帶來了許多好處，包括可以讓沒有復(fù)雜供應(yīng)鏈和冷藏設(shè)施的國家的居民獲得新鮮牛奶和果汁。

This means companies such as Tetra Pak need to do more to make their products not only useful but also sustainable. In the short term, that involves stronger links with recycling mills and waste companies to ensure that the containers they pump into the world are returned and reused.

這意味著利樂等公司需要做出更多努力，讓它們的產(chǎn)品不僅好用，而且符合可持續(xù)發(fā)展。短期來看，這需要加強(qiáng)與回收工廠和廢棄物處理公司的合作，以確保它們輸送至世界各地的包裝得到回收和再利用。

Tetra Pak last year agreed a partnership with Veolia, the French waste management group, to recycle more polymer and aluminium fibres from cartons for industrial use in Europe. Along with other carton makers, it is also increasing its use of recycled and environmentally approved raw materials, such as wood pulp from certified forests.

去年，利樂與法國廢棄物管理公司威立雅(Veolia)達(dá)成合作協(xié)議，在歐洲回收更多紙包裝中的塑料和鋁纖維，用于工業(yè)用途。利樂還與其他紙包裝制造商一道，正在增加使用再生和獲得環(huán)保認(rèn)證的原材料，比如來自認(rèn)證森林的木漿。

In the long term, the company faces a huge technological challenge to get to what it says is its ultimate aim — to construct cartons entirely out of renewable materials, including recycled plastic. Cartons would then no longer require fresh supplies of polymer from oil and gas refineries.

從長遠(yuǎn)來看，利樂要實(shí)現(xiàn)其所稱的最終目標(biāo)——所有紙包裝完全由可再生材料(包括再生塑料)制成——該公司面臨著巨大的技術(shù)挑戰(zhàn)。屆時(shí)，紙包裝將不再需要來自石油和天然氣化工廠的新的塑料供應(yīng)。

It soundsimprobablebut innovation in materials science was what originally enabled the milk carton. That also took a long time to perfect from the first idea of creating a tetrahedral paper carton in 1944 to the manufacture of aseptic containers 17 years later. As Hans Rausing’s father, Ruben, observed: “Doing something that nobody else has done before is actually quite hard.”

這聽起來似乎不太可能，但正是材料科學(xué)的創(chuàng)新當(dāng)初讓牛奶紙包裝成為可能。從生產(chǎn)一種四面體紙包裝的想法首次在1944年出現(xiàn)，到17年后無菌紙包裝的制成，這一過程也花了很長時(shí)間去完善。正如漢斯•勞辛的父親魯本•勞辛(Ruben Rausing)所言：“做別人沒做過的事實(shí)際上是相當(dāng)困難的。”

The multilayer carton turned out to be a far more useful invention than even the Rausings realised at the time. But, like plastic bottles and aluminium cans, it was imperfect. Making it greener is a worthwhile project.

多層紙包裝已被證明是一項(xiàng)甚至比當(dāng)時(shí)勞辛家族意識到的更有用的發(fā)明。但像塑料瓶和鋁罐一樣，它并非完美無缺。讓它變得更環(huán)保是一項(xiàng)值得付出的事業(yè)。