Sustainable aviation: build a green future with innovation
Now, under the strong impetus of a series of national policies, the epidemic control has achieved remarkable results. With the further liberalization of policies, the long-term backlog of domestic and foreign tourism industry will certainly promote the recovery of the aviation industry. The following is both an opportunity and a new round of challenges.
Facing the relevant policies of green development, under the favorable situation of industry recovery, how to maintain the sustainable development of airlines has become another difficult problem in the aviation industry. In this regard, airlines have implemented a number of environmental protection measures.
Airframe hardware upgrade
All Nippon Airways launched its "ANA Future Promise" in June 2021, and two of All Nippon Airways' "Green Jets" have been fitted with laser micro-processed "shark skin" film, which mimics the streamlined nature of shark skin to effectively reduce friction and improve overall fuel efficiency
Use clean fuel
In a series of solutions to achieve de-carbonization in the aviation industry, the use of clean fuel is undoubtedly the most direct and effective means. Compared with traditional aviation fuel, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is a cleaner alternative. At present, a series of domestic airlines including Air China and China Southern Airlines have tried to use clean fuel to reduce pollution and protect the environment
Airfood packaging upgrade
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), more than 350kg of plastic is used in people's meal packaging or cups on an average flight. In order to better "reduce plastic", airlines have made a series of upgrades in food packaging, such as using sustainable bio-based materials, using degradable packaging materials and so on. For example, PLA mentioned in the tender of China Southern Airlines, Chongqing Air China and Shenzhen Airlines also clearly pointed out the need to use BOPLA as the main raw material of biodegradable materials, airline food packaging upgrade has been urgent.
With growing concerns about environmental protection and sustainable development, airlines are seeking more environmentally friendly packaging materials in order to comply with the civil aviation plastic restrictions. Reviewing the development of aviation food packaging, from BOPP/PET material, to PBAT+PLA+ starch material program, and then to the current hot bidirectional stretching material of BOPLA, it shows that aviation food packaging is also constantly exploring, trying and upgrading.
So the question is, in such an iterative path, why BOPLA can arouse the attention and attempts of many airlines? Its core competitiveness should be attributed to the following three points:
(1) The raw material of BOPLA is derived from polylactic acid extracted from plants, which is not only renewable but also has the characteristics of controllable degradation. BOPLA is an ideal green polymer material. It is obvious from the invitation for bids of the airlines that the major airlines prefer the materials with purer ingredients and lower carbon content. Moreover, BOPLA itself can be heat-sealed into bags, which is more convenient than composite bag making.
(2)BOPLA can be in direct contact with food, and can also meet the storage requirements of food at room temperature or cold storage. The most important thing is that the material thickness of 33μm can meet the pressure requirements of inflatable food 3.5 atmospheres (Changsu independent research and development of BOPLA film bag measured up to 4 atmospheric pressure bag). For the aviation industry with strict take-off weight requirements, reducing the thickness of the material will indirectly reduce the weight of the whole machine, which is undoubtedly a positive sustainable virtuous cycle.
(3)From the perspective of navigation food safety, BOPLA is also a rare choice at present. Due to its characteristics of high transparency, the products can be clearly seen after transparent bag making, which is convenient to check the status of food, and it is not easy to hide dangerous goods in the food bag. This function of visualization plays a vital role in aviation safety.
It can be seen that BOPLA has become the optimal solution in the field of plastic ban in civil aviation under the background of the implementation of the plastic ban.
With the recovery of the aviation industry in 2023, everything is on track, people can travel all around the world. As the aviation industry continues to transform into a circular economy and progress towards sustainable development, it has learned from the upgrading of airline food packaging materials that the road to green flight will not stop, and a greener and more sustainable future is not a far-fetched fantasy.
If you want to know more about degradable packaging materials for aviation food,
please contact us: marketing@chang-su.com.cn
Post time: Feb-23-2023