The Vinyl Institute executive director Robert Burnett was in India last week to address two day global conference -- PVC 2000, organised by Society of Plastic Engineers Inc USA (Indian section). PVC 2000 was a global technical conference for redefining PVC for the Next Millenium.

Interestingly, even when the seminar was concerning the country's two major polymer makers Reliance Industries and Indian Petrochemicals Ltd, top executives of both these companies were conspicuous by their absence. In fact, IPCL chairman and managing director KG Ramanathan was expected to deliver the inaugural address, while RIL vice chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambaniwas said to be the guest of honour and was expected to deliver keynote address.

Speaking at PVC 2020, Burnett said: the world demand for PVC is expected to grow at an average of more than five per cent each year till 2005. In developing areas of the world particularly in parts of Asia -- we expect to see even higher demand...The industry has the potential to reach over $61 billion in value in 2020, with worldwide consumption of vinyl reaching more than three million metric tonnes. On the flip side, restriction of vinyl's growth could limit us to just $23 billion and a little more than one million tonnes of worldwide consumption.

Speaking to The Financial Express Burnett said: PVC is not a bad product to be banned. We expect Indian plastic makers to join the global campaign so as to save not just the jobs but even the industry as a whole.

There has been increasing pressure even on the Indian government from various environmental groups, including the members of the Greenpeace movement, to ban theproduct. Of late, there has been pressure even on the state governments to ban the use of plastic bags in the country, which is littered almost everywhere blocking sewage water systems and creating health hazards.

"There is an excellent plastic disposal system in India," Burnett said. "Like in India, there are no ragpickers in the western world who would collect disposed plastic bags to be sent for reprocessing. In order to take care of the plastic disposed in our part of the world we would have to set up a similar system".

According to Burnett, incineration remains to be one of the best ways to dispose off plastic. However, it has to be of high precision and is a costly system. The second important way to dispose plastic is its use in landfill. "We in the US move around 70 per cent of disposed plastic to landfills. However, because of constraint on the available land, not many countries have the benefit of this mode to dispose used plastic".

One of the important observation on the subject of disposalof plastics was made by SPE Fellow Elliot Weinberg. Said Weinberg: "We need not worry about increasing disposed plastics, for, plastics is nothing but solidified petroleum. This could be used even to generate electricity if properly handled."

Weinberg, principal, CrossGates Consultants, too was in India and has been one of the major forces behind conducting the PVC 2000 in India.

According to both, Burnett and Weinberg, the excess polymer capacity built all around the globe and the resultant ongoing depression in the global polymer prices since the past 20 months "is cyclical." Said Weinberg: "The current situation is like any business cycle that began with the south east Asian crisis and is therefore, temporary in nature. sooner than later polymer prices are expected to look up."

"With the improvement in the south east Asian economies and other economies linked with it, we see improvement in demand for plastics. This will help improve polymer prices," he added.

According to Burnett, the globalcampaign to improve prospects of plastics include finding perfect alternative use of plastics replacing wood, the use of which causes deforestation. The construction industry provides the greatest opportunity for vinyl's growth...both in the industrialised and developing nations.

Lastly, Burnette said: "No one in the plastic industry is immune from the attacks the vinyl industry has endured. But compared to our colleagues in the rest of the plastic industry, I believe we are better prepared to face the 21st century than any other plastic material. We have recognised our shortcomings, and we are working aggressively to correct them. We have looked hard into the future and now know how our industry and our products can serve the needs of a new millennium".