The Tinplate Company of India, a part of the Tata Group, participated at the recently concluded pacprocess 2019 event in Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. Samadarshi Sarkar, assistant manager, services and solutions, Tinplate Packaging India said, “Of the overall packaging industry in India, only 10% belongs to metal packaging – of this half is tinplate packaging and the remaining is metal packaging (including aluminum) per se.” The Tinplate Company of India has close to 40% share in tinplate packaging.
Tinplate packaging is generally an 8-layer sandwich. There is a steel substrate base and then comes two layers of tin, alloy tin and free tin followed by a chromic acid coating that is oiled on to the surface so that its scratch-proof. The Tinplate Company is growing at a healthy rate of 5% to 6% every year. “Looking at the macro-economic factors, it seems that India is a promising market to progress in this field. With the ban on single-use plastics as a form of packaging, it seems likely that the consumption pattern of packaging goes back to the basics and we start using metal again,” explains Sarkar.
Tinplate packaging is almost 100% recyclable. A recycled tinplate packaging cannot be recycled back to its original form but can be processed into steel. Currently, the company works with close to 350 customers spread across the country. These customers are either fabricators or fillers having an in-house fabrication facility.
Unlike pressurized cans which are usually aluminum, non-pressurized metal cans, which require more strength, come under tinplate packaging. The tinplate packaging market is primarily driven by increasing urbanization, rise in packaged food sales, increasing demand for aerosol products, rising demand for metal packaging in alcohol industry, and increasing consumption of canned vegetables and foods. Pharmaceuticals and cosmetics industry is propelling the growth of the tinplate packaging market.
Global tinplate packaging market is highly fragmented and is segmented based on product, application and region. On the basis of product, the tinplate market is classified into primary, secondary and other grade tinplate.
Metal that was once a primary form of packaging has now turned into a luxury item. “It is a perception that has come in because plastics are much cheaper to process. That gives packaging companies the perception that one can kill on the packaging costs with plastics. But if one takes the environmental impact of packaging into account and the cost of recycling it, it becomes much costlier than the metal alternatives. Tinplate looks like a costly alternative upfront. But, the EPR initiative that various brand owners have been mandated to take up is going to raise the cost of plastic as a packaging material drastically,” shares Sarkar.
“Metal packaging has its advantages and the biggest of all is its property of being pilfer-proof. However bad one drops a can, it’s very rare that it would leak. On the other hand, a plastic jar dropped from the same height may rupture,” concluded Sarkar.