…says P C Joshi, Secretary General, PET Packaging Association for Clean Environment (PACE), who claims that over 75% of the used PET bottles are recycled leading to generation of around Rs 3,500 crore in revenues. In this interaction, Joshi discusses advantage of PET packaging and its market dynamics.

 

What was the objective behind formation of PACE?

 

PET Packaging Association for Clean Environment (PACE) promotes the benefits of PET packaging and supports efficient recovery & recycling of post consumer bottles for sustainable environment. We generate public awareness to stop littering, promote collection and segregation of post-consumer PET packaging for value added recycling. PACE pro-actively engages with Government, regulatory agencies and other stakeholders in providing assistance in formulating policies and to address common concerns of our members. We facilitate framing and dissemination of best practices related to PET manufacturing and re-cycling. The association supports the growth of PET packaging industry by maximising the growth opportunities. PACE is presently engaged with various centres of excellences to research and study the health aspects, life cycle assessment and mapping of recycling landscape related to PET bottles under Indian conditions.

 

Sustainability is a buzz word in packaging industry. How is PET packaging industry handling this issue?

 

PET is a perfect polymer for recycling. The post consumer PET bottles can be recycled multiple time without any substantial degradation of property for value added products like films, non-woven and fibre application. It can even be recycled to produce food grade polymer for reuse in bottles for food application, although it is yet not allowed in India.

 

Over 75% of the post consumer PET bottles are already been recovered and being recycled in over 48 organised facilities into fibre for use as pillow and mattress applications. The industry generates around Rs 3,500 crore of revenue and it is estimated that over 16,000 ragpickers and others in collection chain get full time employment to deliver the bottles to fibre manufacturing plants.

PACE together with industry are promoting the practices and systems to improve recovery of post consumer PET bottles for higher value added products.

 

What are key challenges before PET packaging industry in India?

 

There are primarily two challenges - fragmented capacity limiting induction of efficient processing technologies, and establishing eco-system to stop littering of post consumer waste to increase the recovery and recycling rate.

 

How is the demand for PET packaging in India?

 

India is consuming presently 900,000 to 920,000 tonnes per year of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) material. Around 92% of this is used in bottles for beverages (alcoholic & non-alcoholic, health drinks, etc), pharmaceutical and personal hygiene products. The market for consumer products is growing almost in double digit resulting in 7-8% per year growth of PET material.

 

What are the emerging trends in PET packaging?

 

There is a trend towards light weighting of PET bottles to save raw material and reduce carbon footprint. There is a rise in the usage of highly automated and mass production machinery to reduce conversion cost. To improve the quality of recycling, the industry is looking at the design of other components (such as caps, labels, secondary packaging used in filled bottles, etc).

 

What is the future of PET packaging in India?

 

PET is a proven material for packaging large range of food and beverage products in absolutely safe condition. It is a highly inert material with high barrier properties and is fully recyclable. The various efforts under implementation presently will support higher recovery and recycling of post consumer PET bottles in a circular manner optimising the consumption of virgin material and associate environmental cost. India presently has production capacity of close to 2 million tonnes per annum and domestic consumption of around 920,000 tonnes. India is a major exporter of the polymer in the world. It is estimated that PET consumption in India will grow at 8-10% annually. The outlook for the Industry is very good.