5 Bn recycled waste-paper plant to come up in Gujarat

Wednesday, 23 April 2008, 19:30 IST
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Ahmedabad: Pragati Papers Industries, a Delhi based firm, is putting up a 5 billion recycled waste-paper plant in Gujarat. The plant, at Dahej in Bharuch district, is likely to be commissioned in 2010. The plant will produce 400 tons of newsprint daily from waste-paper, which will be converted into pulp first, according to company officials. P.N. Taylor, managing director of the company, told IANS: "The project will also include a 16-MW waste-based power unit." "The project will be spread over 400,000 sq ft area. Of the total project cost, about 80 percent will be funded through bank loans while the remaining shall be through internal accruals." He said the land acquisition was currently on. Industry experts here say recycled waste paper is an environmental-friendly alternate source for paper-making. The three major sources of raw material for recycling are newsprint, photocopied paper and ink-jet-printed papers. Recycling of paper requires the removal of the printing ink from the used paper. Two types of inks are used for printing, the impact and the non-impact inks. Newspapers are printed using impact inks where the ink does not fuse with the paper and is therefore easy to remove. Industry experts say in India, the collection of office refuse has not been very high mainly in the absence of a viable collection system. In practice, more than 80 percent of the paper consumed in India is being collected, of which only 20 percent is being made available to the paper industry and the remaining 60 percent is usually diverted for other uses such as wrapping, packing and the like. But Taylor said his firm will have no problem on this count. "We have been in the business of collecting waste papers for the last 20 years and hence it should pose no problems. We also run a 250 ton per day paper-manufacturing plant based on recycled paper in Punjab and, therefore, we have gained valuable experience and expertise." There are over 40,000 newspapers in India who are affected by the increase in price of newsprint, imported or indigenous. The price, which was quoted at $760 a ton in March, is expected to cross $1,000 per ton, according to experts. However, India is a marginal player in global newsprint consumption. Its annual consumption is barely two million tons out of the global consumption of 38.3 million tons. About 45 percent of the Indian requirement is met locally.
Source: IANS