Top Left : lighting a lamp ( From Left ), Shri Avinash Joshi MD ( ONGC Petro Additions ltd ), Shri Vijay Sampla Hon ’ ble Minister of state for social justice & empowerment , Shri P Raghavendra Rao Secretary Department of chemicals & Petrochemicals , Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers , Shri Harvir Singh Editor Outlook Hindi , Shri S K Nayak DG CIPET & Shri Indranil Roy CEO Outlook Group . Top Right Corner : Padma Shri Rajagopalan Vasudevan ( Dean Thiagarajar collage of Engineering Madurai )
editor started the session with a welcome address in which he talked about the significance of the material plastic in our daily lives and in industry . He got into the very basics — reminding / educating the audience that plastic is made from petro-chemicals and fossil fuels and that , astoundingly , 50 per cent of all plastic is manufactured for single-use disposable application . If you think about it , there ’ s no other substance which is created on this massive scale for just one-time use ! Considering that plastic is an exceptionally durable compound which will take centuries to completely biodegrade , this means half of the plastic produced in the world at any given point is bound to turn into waste . That sounds like a giant non-degradable environment footprint , but then , plastic is an inherent part of the modern world which cannot just be wished away . Therefore , its sustainability options need to be closely studied . Ramesh stressed on the fact that discussion and knowledge exchange around the sustainability of plastic has to be spread across people , adding that the media had a huge role to play in making people aware of the issues .
After this followed the proverbial lighting of the lamp by Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment ,
Vijay Sampla , and the podium was opened by his inaugural address . The minister talked about his own experience at the ground level of recycling plastic waste and making something useful out of it . He recounted his experiments with recycling when he was the chairman of the Khadi board in Punjab in the past . Back then , Sampla and his team set up a unit in Amritsar where plastic waste could be crushed and steam-pressed into plywood-like boards , which could be used in a number of things . Sampla also appealed to the people gathered to make an effort to reach out to people on the ground and share the knowledge around plastic sustainability with them . His words were met with understanding nods by the audience , most of who were experts on aspects of plastic and presumably interested in reaching out with their expertise to the government representatives Sampla said that the attitude of the common people has to be changed by explaining things to them in the language they understand i . e . A language without jargon and theory . He also mentioned a case where a young boy had dug well in his village in a modern way by using just common sense . Sampla implied that this DIY ( Do It Yourself ) approach can take us a long way even in
recycling and it should be encouraged and understood at the same time .
In order to talk about sustainable solutions , we must first know how the plastic industry functions . To educate the gathering about this , next up on stage was P . Raghavendra Rao , secretary with the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals , Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers , Government of India . The focus of Rao ’ s presentation was shedding some light on good plastics and good technology in that regard as well as providing some background about the economics around plastic . The growth of the plastic in the last ten years was about 10 per cent and the projected growth of the Indian plastic industry is 14 per cent for the next ten years . While India is among the top three countries when it comes to overall plastic consumption , its consumption in per-capita terms is way lesser than most countries . Where the per-capita consumption of plastic in the country is 30-40 Kg ( approximately ), the US per-capita consumption is at 100 Kg and even countries like China and Brazil are way ahead of India . Rao suggested that the demand for plastic , particularly plastic of high quality is growing steadily in India as the GDP grows and the disposable incomes of a