Despite the fact that India has one of the highest plastics recycling rates in the world (an estimated 47 percent of all plastics is recycled) the demand for recycled plastics is huge, especially for commodity plastics such as PP, PET, PS, LDPE and HDPE.

Partially due to the growth of the Indian construction industry - growing at approx. 20 percent p.a. - the demand for PVC is exceptionally high with domestic production barely meeting 50 percent of the demand. Again, of the domestic suppliers, Reliance is the largest followed by Chemplast and Finoflex (with the latter two accounting for about 5 percent of demand).

The Indian plastics market is comprised of around 25,000 companies and employs 3 million people. The domestic capacity for polymer production was 5.72m tonnes in 2009. The State of Gujurat in Western India is the leading plastics processing hub and accounts for the largest number of plastics manufacturers, with over 5,000 plastics firms.

The growth rate of the Indian plastics industry is one of the highest in the world, with plastics consumption growing at 16 percent per annum (compared to 10 percent p.a. in China and around 2.5 percent p.a. in the UK). With a growing middle class (currently estimated at 50 million) and a low per capita consumption of plastics, currently 8kg per head, this trend is likely to continue. The Plastindia Foundation estimate that plastics consumption is likely to reach 16 kg per head by 2015.

More information can be found in the BPF report on "Plastics Industry
in India" under bpf.co.uk.

Source: Recyclingportal.EU

• www.recyclingportal.eu