An initiative —- ‘Plastics and Sustainability Forum - 2008’ —- is being organised by the Centre for Quality Management System (CQMS), Jadavpur University and the Indian Plastics Federation (IPF), in association with the government of West Bengal, to discuss how the plastic industry that generates a lot of employment and has a high revenue-earning potential can be made environmentally sustainable.

Representatives of companies like Haldia Petrochemical and Reliance Industries, experts from Indian Toxicological Institute and foreign researchers form USA, UK, Thailand, Switzerland and Australia are expected to participate at the forum.

They will offer their suggestions for the formulation of an international standard guideline to govern the plastic industry, especially the plastic waste recycling process.

One of the topics slated to be discussed at the forum will be the ‘FDIS 17250 Plastics - Guidelines For Recovery And Recycling Of Plastics Wastes’, which is being framed by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), Geneva, to assist the plastic industry in the development of — a sustainable global infrastructure for plastics recovery and recycling and creating a sustainable market for recovered plastics materials and their derived manufactured products.

The final set of guidelines will ensure that units not complying with the environmentally efficient process of plastic recycling are weeded out.

In 2005 an international institute, Canadian Aid Foundation, had given a financial assistance to the state government for installing an eco-friendly recycling machinery in the state’s plastic recycling units. Professor Sadhan Kumar Ghosh, coordinator of CQMS, had designed this machine. The state government even offered a subsidy to the tune of 50 per cent of the cost of the machine to around 500 companies registered with the state pollution control board for installing them.

“However, none of the companies went in for the machines. Probably because the recycling units, especially in Kolkata, are so small that they did not even want to invest Rs 20,000,” said Ghosh, who is also a member of the international committee responsible for framing the ISO guidelines. Ghosh said that the guidelines would be finalised in September 2008.

“Once the guideline is framed, it will be adopted by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) making it compulsory for Indian recycling units to comply with it, lest they will be declared illegal,” Ghosh said.

K K Seksaria of the Indian Plastics Federation (IPF) said the problem stems from the fact that most of the recycling units present in the city are very small and unorganised.