Plastics and Packaging: A Way of Life, Features - Personality

N. C. Saha
Director,
Indian Institute of Packaging

Q. Packaging & Plastics are growing from strength to strength. What are your views on the same?

Today, the use of plastic packaging has entered in every walk of our daily life. We start the day by way of touching a plastic package i.e. tooth paste, shaving cream etc., all packed in plastic materials. Even for breakfast, whether, we like to have corn flakes or bread toast or noodles or macroni, all these products are packed in different types of packages which are made from plastic only. However, the packages could be available in different form and made of either from multilayered plastic tubes or multilatered laminate and so on. In fact, the day passes through by way of touching plastic components in every moment like steering wheel in cars, office chairs, tables, files, cupboards and even laptops and computers, all are made from plastic materials.

Due to this fact, the consumption of plastic materials in packaging has superceded all other packaging materials. In India, the consumption of plastic in packaging is about 34% and average growth rate is about 20-25%, whereas, the overall growth rate of packaging is about 15%. According to me, this particular trend will continue further due to many advantages of the plastic materials like easy availability, light weight, sealability, amenable to printing, good barrier properties and cost effectiveneness.

Though, there is a lot of controversy about the use of plastic materials as these materials lead to carbon emission and thus causes environmental pollution. It is said that plastics after incineration leads to toxic gases - this may not be true in all cases because all plastic material does not emit toxic fumes or gases. Hence, this aspect needs to be clarified and there is a need to improve the awareness among the consumers and to make them understand about the positive features of the application of plastics in packaging. Needless to mention here that the consumption pattern in European countries is also the same as Asian countries.

Q. How do you see the changing trends in the next 3 years?

According to me, the trend will continue and lot of development will happen in terms of improvement of barrier properties, contamination sealing property, transparency and cost effectiveness since polymer technology has been able to develop newer materials like nano technology, biodegradable polymeric materials and so on.

Q. Could you please explain which sub sectors in packaging would stand to benefit the most, with growing use of plastics in packaging?

Plastic packaging will standout in the consumer sectors as almost all types of consumer goods are packed in plastic materials like bakery products, confectionery, snack food, dairy products, instant food, stimulating products like tea, coffee, spices, fresh milk, toiletries, cosmetics etc.

In addition, bulk packaging of hazardous goods will also grow by way of using plastic materials in different forms like plastic barrels, plastic drums, jerry cans, carbouys, flexible intermediate bulk containers (FIBC), plastic rigid intermediate bulk container (IBC). There is also another area where the use of plastic woven sacks will grow to a great extent - food grains, cement, fertilisers, sand and plastic based leno sacks for the packaging of fruits and vegetables.

Q. What changing role can the government, industry and consumer play to further enhance the use of plastics in packaging?

The industries involved in the manufacturing of plastic packaging materials have to play a major role to change the mind set of the consumers by way of educating the consumers. This is possible only by way of organising many more campaigns. In addition, the industries also need to upgrade their quality control measures for the improvement of quality of products by way of setting up quality control laboratory. The industries should not use any kind of objectionable masterbatches or colouring materials so that the application of these materials should not have any carcinogenic effects. This will help in supplying quality goods to the consumers as well as grow the export market.

Today, the biggest problem in packaging is the disposal of packaging solid waste. In this context, municipality and other government civic bodies need to take aggressive steps for the formulation of mechanisms or strategies about the collection of household garbage materials, segregation and send them for recycling to manufacture various items which will have non-packaging application. In this context, the plastic packaging industries also need to participate actively to fulfill the mission.

Plastics and Packaging: A Way of Life

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