‘Plastic can contain recession impact’

Plastic is a silver lining in the global recession gloom, said participants at a seminar organised in the city on Saturday. “Per capita consumption of plastic in India is just 5.2 kg which is much lower than the world’s per capita consumption of 25 kg. It indicates that there is a huge potential in this field as the market is still untapped,” said Neelkamal Darbari, joint secretary, ministry of chemicals and fertilisers. Speaking at the seminar organised by Gujarat State Plastic Manufacturers Association, she advised plastic manufacturers to innovate products to increase penetration of plastic and scale up their capacities to meet future demand. “There is vast scope of use of plastic in agriculture, which is immune to global recession,” she added.

Elaborating on the subject of seminar, ‘Recession — an opportunity’, Kamal Nanavati, president, cracker and polymer, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) said, 55% of the country’s population falls in the age bracket of 20-60 years, which is productive in terms of earning. He projected that the demand for polymer would touch 120 lakh tonnes in 2012. “Gujarat is a hub of polymer as the state contributes 67% of the country’s total production. Plastic industry should focus on plastic conversion sector, where Daman is far ahead of Gujarat,” Nanavati added.