The excellent effort by TERI and the Delhi Administration in organizing the recent “Pathways to Green Publishing” seminar within government premises is another opportunity for suppliers, printers and converters, and for our customers, to take meaningful initiatives. Almost gone are the days of band-aid laws, corrupt politicians and incompetent bureaucrats. Delhi, which claims it has increased its forest cover to almost 21% in 2007, wants to lead the way.

JK Dadoo of the Delhi Administration said that 5000 industrial units in Delhi release untreated effluents; that in the 34 industrial estates of the city, there are only 11 common effluent treatment plants and the large water guzzlers do not recycle. He added that although 1200 effluent treatment plants have been created by individual industries they cost anywhere from INR 25,000 to 250,000 (Euro 400 to 4,000) a month to maintain. Unfortunately most printers and converters are not serious about building and maintaining these plants and dealing with hazardous wastes.
The seminar contained good bits on sustainability and carbon footprint and scale from paper and board manufacturers such as ITC P&SPD and JK Paper, and the professional publishers who were present. The local printers however have not yet really understood the need for environment protocols and audits. The lone articulate voice was that of a professional newspaper printer.

Green talk is cheap although most printers cannot even spend a full day away from work for this. The Indian printing and packaging industries have to begin their green investments by spending on environment protocols and audits. Then they can look forward to spending some more on effluent, recycling, and green technology.

Asia to see major packaging activity
Asia continues to hog the major share of investments in new capacities for both basic packaging materials and converting ranging all the way from petrochemicals to oriented films to finished multilayer laminates. One forecast made by PCI Films Consulting even predicts that as much as 50 per cent of new converting capacity that will come up worldwide during the second half of this decade will be set up in India and China. While this is partially due to the fact that these economies are rapidly developing into major consumer markets for packaged products on the back of booming GDP growth, there is no denying that the flexible packaging industry in this region is really going places.

Jindal Poly Films, for example, have investments in additional capacities in the pipeline that will probably make them the world’s largest BOPP film producer by the end of next year and, by some margin, the world’s largest manufacturer of oriented films by 2010 with an annual capacity of some 410,000 MT, all at one location. Other majors likeUflex are also going “international” and implementing large investments in Dubai and Mexico. China, of course, is seeing a slew of investments bymany world leaders in manufacturing plants of all kinds. All this proliferation in manufacturing activity is surely bound to lead to the region also emerging as a strong force in technological development. I predict exciting times ahead in
South and Southeast Asia.