Another day in life many years
ago, we would love to light up a bonfire on a winter evening and sit around it
warming ourselves and enjoying it. It was a common sight to see construction
workers and other labourers huddled around a small fire they would light up by
burning tree branches or dried leaves to warm themselves and ward off the cold.
This incineration, which was a pleasurable exercise once, is looked at as
non-acceptable now because it generates smoke and adds to the already high
level of pollution in our cities. In the 1960s all our groceries were shopped
wrapped in paper or carried in paper bags. In India we saw a lot of paper bags
made even from old newspapers and old magazines adding an element of
recyclability to the already used paper.
In 1965 Swedish company Celloplast
patented the single use poly bag to start an era of convenience in shopping
with plastic bags. By late 1970s or early 1980s the polybag evolution had
reached India and started to grow at a robust pace. It also became the preferred
packaging material for a very diverse range of end products. Rapid developments
were made to create multipolymer laminates to achieve better shelf life and
barrier properties. So much so that it
became difficult to imagine a life without these plastic bags.
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| Mountain of garbage termed as landfil |
Ironically by end of the last
century the ill effects of plastic waste due to non-biodegradability became the
most worrying factor for governments. The plastic bags littered around the
globe remained plastic for years and would remain so for hundreds of years. Bangladesh
became the first country in the world to implement a ban on thin plastic
bags, after it was found they played a key role in clogging drainage systems
during disastrous flooding. Other countries began to follow suit. Soon the
awareness came about that plastic was not only clogging drains but also adding
to soil quality erosion, affecting life of cattle who devoured these while
grazing and endangered the sea with tons of plastic dumped in. The heightened
awareness of all kinds of waste going to landfills; in fact, they are no more
landfills but have become garbage mountains occupying expensive and already
shrinking land space in cities and emitting poisonous gasses impacting
environment and health of population. Climate control, banning single use
plastics, finding alternative to multi-polymer plastic laminates due to these
not being recycled, conserving resources, recycling, reusing, waste management,
etc. became imperatives for all governments. Environmental protection and
sustainability became the necessity and buzzword for a safe future of
generations that follow us. Sustainability is explained as the avoidance of
depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance, in
other words replenishing the mother earth with the natural resources that we
use for our benefits.
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Kimoha Solar plant
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The author while returning from
Labelexpo Europe in Brussels in the end of September 2019, stopped over to
visit Dubai based label printing company Kimoha. While excelling in the world
of labels Kimoha leadership had done a lot of work including investing for environmental
protection, waste management and sustainability, setting example for others in
the label industry to follow suit. Being fully aware that advancements and
enhancement approaches are needed for the economic development of the present
without compromising the capacity of future generations, Kimoha has taken steps
to be sustainable and take care of the environment and its social well-being.
They successfully completed the Green Building Initiative and are the
first printing company within GCC to have the Gold LEED certification from the
US GBC for its manufacturing facility. Under the new green clean energy initiative,
they have commissioned own Solar Plant with Installed capacity of 1.0143 MWp,
generating 30% of their power requirement. Kimoha Solar Plant is one of the
largest Solar plant in the manufacturing segment within JAFZA. All the
mechanical material handling systems are battery operated to cut off use of
fuel and its associated pollution.
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| Integrated Waste Management System |
Kimoha sources material from FSC
certified partners as a responsible management initiative in protecting
forests, being in paper industry. The
entire facility light management system is based on Motion & Occupancy
Sensors. Occupancy sensors increase lighting energy savings by 23 %, auto
turning off or turning down for amount of time with no movement. Skylights
are used as natural lights here at Kimoha warehouse, thus further adding to Energy
Management initiatives. As a part of its water conservation initiative,
waterless urinals are installed in the facility washrooms. One waterless
urinal saves approximately 3,250 gallons of water a year. The Solar
cleaning system is also of dry wash robotic system which aids this program. On
its Carbon footprint initiative, Kimoha has installed a state of art Integrated
Waste Management System for auto extracting and compacting its label design and
trim waste. Most of the paper waste is bailed, to reduce size and skip loads
and sent to recycling vendors for a circular economy. Right from inception
Kimoha has always believed in human capital and thus refrained from using
Solvent Inks. Kimoha also has a Sedex
Member Mark which is a testimony to their responsible and sustainable business
practices.
Back home in India the author
tried to touch base with label printers in India to understand if they too were
investing to make their industry and products environmentally safe and
sustainable. It was heartening to note that the process has begun but it is
just the beginning. To have a large-scale impact down the line, it appears
legislation will provide the necessary impetus required in this direction. Noida
based Any Graphics lead by Kuldip Goel is building a new huge new certified
green factory spread over 15500 square meters that will be ready to move into
in 2020. Kuldip Goel says: ‘The green manufacturing unit will be our
contribution towards being environment friendly and sustainable. The process
began right from the time when we started building the plant. For
instance, we cannot uproot any trees from the new land without having a plan to
re-plant and nurture them and plant maximum number of local varieties.’ Complying
to the Green factory requirements they are procuring maximum construction
materials produced from within 500 kms of the construction site, using minimum
50 percent old material and furniture from previous factory, minimum usage
of wood, covered car parking, usage of less water and big fume taps to save
water, natural sunlight inside the factory, usage of light and insulating
Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) panels in the building, amongst
others. They also plan to install both sewage treatment plant (STP) as
well as an effluent treatment plant (ETP) at the new facility. ‘With the STP,
they will be able to re-use almost 50 percent of our water that
would otherwise just go down the drains. With the consumption of almost
40,000 litres of water a day, this will be a huge saving. They are also
installing state of the art 600-700 KW rooftop solar power units. This will
reduce 5.5 to 7.5 MT of CO2 emissions annually, equivalent to planting about
35,000 trees. Goel further added, “We have even studied air direction at the
new site to maximize the impact of air flow and sun for most efficient use of
solar light and energy. There is a list of above 40 requirements listed by The
Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) that we must adhere to for our
factory to be qualified as a green building and we are passionately working on
each one of them”.
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| The author with Anuj Bhargava |
Another Noida based Label Company
Anuj Bhargava lead Kumar Labels who also produce labelstock for their captive
consumption has put in place many processes in their production plan to make
their contribution to environment and sustainability. They have shifted to 100%
LED lighting in their factory. They plan to replace UV lams with LED UV lamps
on all their presses by 2021, the process has begun. They have developed and
commercialized SRTF (Single Release with Two Face stocks) which saves 50%
release liner. Spreading the concept globally. Other endeavors include
elimination of corrugated boxes and using multi-use plastic trays for
dispatches within 200km distance which saved over 15 Tons of kraft each year.
Selling labels on bagasse, mineral paper and recycled kraft label stocks
(though to begin with the quantity is small). Work has started to use thinner
liners. 70% of factory is on evaporative cooling instead of air conditioning,
saving energy. No plastic bottles or cups are used for water or food, even
during group dinners. Segregation of waste is done so that most unsupported
material gets recycled. Employees are encouraged to shift closer to factory to
avoid commute and save fuel. To set an example, owners have also moved closer
to factory. Used UV lamps are disposed off through a recycler who removes the
mercury.
The self-adhesive labels industry
as it continues to grow, has been facing a gigantic task for disposal of side
trim, waste matrix and liner waste. Almost 50% of the label material after
conversion is waste and earlier converters were either sending the same to
landfill or incinerating it. Both the actions are adversely impacting the
environment and require urgent attention. Multinational labelstock
manufacturers Avery Dennison has taken some pioneering initiatives towards this
problem. The Company under their “Avery Dennison’s Recycling Services India
program” has been concerned about the accumulation of waste and is on a mission
to also reduce the amount of packaging materials used beside recycling and
managing the waste generated. They in association with leading brand owners started
collecting the label liner generated as part of the labelling operations
centrally before passing these on to the appointed recycler for this Liner
Recycling Program. The collected liner waste is then reprocessed, and this
recycled pulp is used to create new materials such as cardboard, paper, and
tissue. On another front they are interacting with converters to co-process or reprocess
their leftover label matrix instead of landfilling it at no cost, given that
the paper and film materials are sorted at the converter end. The matrix that
is made from either paper or film material is usually discarded. As per Avery’s
initiative through co-processing, paper matrix can be re-used as fuel in industrial
processes. Through reprocessing, filmic matrix is converted to polymer pellets
used to manufacture products like boards and benches.
Himanshu Kapoor of Mumbai based J
K Fine Prints lists the processes that they have implemented in this direction:
The have started liner recycling program with Avery Dennison, all plastic ink
bottles are sent to MPCB(Maharashtra Pollution Control Board) waste handling
unit, used UV lamps go to hazardous waste collection unit, they pack finished rolls
in paper and not in plastic, all waste is shredded and sent to cement kilns to
use as an energy source to replace natural gas, cores/boxes/packing materials
etc. are reused to reduce carbon footprint, waste water from water purification
system is reused for cleaning purposes, all ACs/fans/lights are switched off
when not in use, Auto stop taps installed resulted in reduced usage of water
and collection of used liner from end users and sending to recycle in pipeline.
Sustainability is important
for many reasons including environmental Quality in order to have healthy
communities and a safer planet for generations that follow, we
need clean air, natural resources, and a nontoxic environment. Government
has now realized the huge negative impact of this and due to their efforts to
spread awareness, words like sustainability, environmental protection, circular
economy, recyclability, reusable, etc. have become frequently debated topics in
industrial conferences and CSR initiatives of leading industrial houses. Even
the common people now are impacted and concerned about this problem. Label
industry has been implementing many such initiatives to reduce the impact of
waste. For a lot many years we have seen press manufacturers making the label
presses with short web pass to reduce setup waste, usage of thinner filmic
liners have been implemented at many places to reduce the tonnage of liner
going into manufacture of self-adhesive labelstock and more so because the
filmic liner can be recycled to produce other plastic products. In recent times
we also witness the development of linerless labels to entirely do away with
the liner by use of a filmic liner that is peeled off in the manufacturing
process and laminated on top of the same label. One solution cannot cater to
all labelling needs, every process has its advantages and disadvantages, but
the heartening fact is that now the industry is taking steps both to reduce
wastage and eliminate it from going to landfills and incineration. The social
responsibility of the labels industry is evident!
Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited,
New Delhi December 2019
