The 9th Speciality Films & Flexible Packaging Global Summit 2022 by ElitePlus held in Mumbai, 5-6 September 2022, was one event that the whole flexible packaging fraternity in India (and to some extent overseas visitors as well) was looking forward to with much excitement. After endless virtual meetings, conferences, open houses, and even exhibitions, thanks to the pandemic, the flexible packaging industry was eagerly waiting to the confluence at an in-person event where people could meet their peers, and industry colleagues and share knowledge, thoughts, and ideas – ElitePlus conference did not disappoint them at all.
Attended by over 1,600 attendees from 680 companies representing 18 countries, the event was a grand success – exploring and discussing the latest issues and advancements in the industry through thought-provoking keynote speeches and stimulating panel discussions.
During one of the panel discussions, speakers acknowledged that India’s move to ban the manufacturing, imports, distribution and sale of single-use plastic (SUP) items across the country from 1 July 2022 could have been done in a better way. It was a policy hastily made without thinking much about future repercussions. Nevertheless, for other speakers in the panel discussion, the ban policy on SUP was a much-needed development in the direction of plastic waste management in the country. They, however, agreed that the policy did not come in a perfect package and much remained to be thought about before the rollout.
Monomer material is another myth about recyclability – in his keynote speech, Ashok Chaturvedi, chairman and managing director of UFlex said. The answer to flexible packaging waste is not monomer but collection, sorting and recycling. If you think that monomer is the answer, you will spend another couple of years in it and will go back to square one because it will not reduce waste. Flexible packaging waste will never reduce unless we recycle it.
Collecting flexible packaging waste is a mammoth task – but once you are able to collect it, you will be able to easily recycle it as well. Chaturvedi said that the focus should now be on how to collect waste. There is a universal problem of the unavailability of plastic feedstock. In his keynote, Chaturvedi shared how his company’s pyrolysis plant has been a failure and economically unviable due to the unavailability of plastic waste.
Pankaj Poddar, group CEO, Cosmo First, while speaking about achieving recyclability and sustainability in a circular economy, asked why different brands are doing similar things in different ways – why are we not talking about standardization? Citing examples of milk pouches and mineral water bottles, Poddar explained how these two industries are implementing standardization in a very beautiful manner. Entire milk pouches in the country are today packed in LDPE, and a large part of these are recycled because the waste collectors know that the pouches are LDPE and have a complete recycling chain. Similarly, all water bottles are made of PET, making them easily collectible and recyclable.
Viability and lack of margins among Indian flexible packaging converters was also a hot topic at the conference. RS Sodhi of Amul asked, “What is sustainability for a nation? Is it not full stomachs and full employment? Sustainability starts when stomachs are full!”
This is just a small overview of some of the interesting discussions from the event. We will post more insights and comprehensive reviews of the talks that took place at the conference very soon!