Skip to main content
Sister Publication Links
  • Sustainable Plastics
  • Rubber News
Subscribe
  • Sign Up Free
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Processor News
    • Suppliers
    • More News
    • Digital Edition
    • End Markets
    • Special Reports
    • Newsletters
    • Resin pricing news
    • Videos
    • Injection Molding
    • Blow Molding
    • Film & Sheet
    • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
    • Rotomolding
    • Thermoforming
    • Recycling
    • Machinery
    • Materials
    • Molds/Tooling
    • Product news
    • Design
    • K Show
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Sustainability
    • Public Policy
    • Material Insights Videos
    • Numbers that Matter
    • Automotive
    • Packaging
    • Medical
    • Consumer Products
    • Construction
    • Processor of the Year
    • Best Places to Work
    • Women Breaking the Mold
    • Rising Stars
    • Diversity
    • Most Interesting Social Media Accounts in Plastics
  • Opinion
    • The Plastics Blog
    • Kickstart
    • One Good Resin
    • Pellets and Politics
    • All Things Data
    • Viewpoint
    • From Pillar to Post
    • Perspective
    • Mailbag
    • Fake Plastic Trees
  • Shop Floor
    • Blending
    • Compounding
    • Drying
    • Injection Molding
    • Purging
    • Robotics
    • Size Reduction
    • Structural Foam
    • Tooling
    • Training
  • Events
    • K Show Livestream
    • Plastics News Events
    • Industry Events
    • Injection Molding & Design Expo
    • Livestreams/Webinars
    • Editorial Livestreams
    • Ask the Expert
    • Plastics News Events Library
    • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Plastics News Executive Forum
    • Injection Molding & Design Expo
    • Plastics News Caps & Closures
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
    • Plastics in Automotive
    • PN Live: Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Numbers that Matter Live
    • Plastics in Politics Live
    • Sustainable Plastics Live
    • Plastics Caps & Closures Library
    • Plastics in Healthcare Library
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
  • Rankings & Data
    • Injection Molders
    • Blow Molders
    • Film Sheet
    • Thermoformers
    • Pipe Profile Tubing
    • Rotomolders
    • Mold/Toolmakers
    • LSR Processors
    • Recyclers
    • Compounders - List
    • Association - List
    • Plastic Lumber - List
    • All
  • Directory
  • Resin Prices
    • Commodity TPs
    • High Temp TPs
    • ETPs
    • Thermosets
    • Recycled Plastics
    • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
    • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
    • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
    • Historic Thermosets
    • Historic Recycled Plastics
  • Custom
    • Sponsored Content
    • LS Mtron Sponsored Content
    • Conair Sponsored Content
    • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
    • ENGEL Sponsored Content
    • White Papers
    • Classifieds
    • Place an Ad
    • Sign up for Early Classified
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. News
July 14, 2015 02:00 AM

'Clean India' could give big boost to rotomolding

Steve Toloken
Assistant Managing Editor
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Reprints Print
    Wikipedia Commons
    The 'Clean India' campaign calls for an expected $31 billion to be spent on building toilets, an infrastructure profit plastics leaders expect to use 280,000 metric tons of rotomolded plastic.

    India's rotational molding sector expects to get a sizable boost from the “Clean India” campaign to improve public sanitation, with executives saying they see opportunities from government spending earmarked for public toilets and better garbage collection and recycling.

    “The potential is immense, it's really huge,” said S.B. Zaman, executive director of the New Delhi-based Society of Asian Rotomoulders. “It could provide one of the biggest opportunities. It's a challenge as well.”

    Both the upside and the hurdles of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, as the campaign is called, were central topics of presentations at the group's annual meeting in New Delhi in early February.

    The campaign was launched with much fanfare by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October and aims to spend $31 billion to build 120 million toilets in rural areas, with the stated goal of making India free of open defecation by 2019.

    It also includes extending municipal solid waste management systems to 4,000 towns in that time frame.

    To put some numbers behind that for manufacturers, if 10 percent of the toilets are made from rotomolded plastic, that would represent a market worth a total of about 280,000 metric tons over the next five years, according to estimates presented at the conference by Mumbai-based Reliance Industries Ltd., the country's largest plastics maker.

    That compares with a current Indian rotomolding market that consumes about 150,000 metric tons of material a year. So if those estimates hold up, the Clean India market could potentially represent a 25 percent bump in the size of the industry, annually.

    “The Clean India campaign, launched by our prime minister, is really a focal point where a lot of plastics products are going to find applications,” said Shreekant Diwan, a Reliance business development executive for PE and vinyl, in a speech at the conference. “There is a very, very serious and systematic approach towards solid waste management or sanitation systems in the country.”

    Using standards to compete with other materials

    Enviro Options Holdings Ltd.

    Enviro Options Holdings Ltd. is exploring the potential to bring its Enviro Loo rotomolded toilet system to India as the country invests in infrastructure.

    Taking advantage of that potential, however, will require paying close attention to manufacturing standards and not repeating problems seen in past attempts to expand into new markets without adequate controls, some observers said.

    “There was a problem encountered by the industry when they tried to go into underground tanks,” Zaman said, in an interview at the event. “The main reason is we don't have very definite standards in these areas.

    “We are just hoping that in this particular time the standards, the processes are structured, the methods are correct and there are proper methods,” he said, adding that in the underground tank market, competitors in other industries like concrete tanks were quick to point out perceived problems with plastics.

    Satish Gokhale, an Indian industrial designer who does a lot of work with plastics, made a similar point.

    “We have to follow things that are mandatory and not take shortcuts,” said Gokhale, who is head of product design for Pune, India-based Design Directions Pvt. Ltd. “I think in our industry the biggest curse is taking shortcuts, and copying, or both.”

    Still, he also noted the potential of Clean India.

    “This Swachh Bharat is everywhere,” Gokhale said. “I just hope it really takes off.”

    Foreign rotomolding firms say they're getting a lot of interest from India's sanitation market and the spending associated with Clean India.

    Johannesburg, South Africa-based Enviro Options Holdings Ltd. came to the conference looking for local partners and said India could be its biggest foreign market.

    “We are here for the Clean India campaign,” Rowan Snyman, international sales consultant, said in a speech. “The government is taking great steps to pursue a sanitation agenda.

    “India is seen as the biggest market for us, just because my inbox gets filled up every day with inquires about our toilets from India,” he said in an interview.

    Similarly, a Turkish rotomolding company at the conference said it saw opportunities as India increased spending on infrastructure.

    But Celal Beysel, founder of the Bursa, Turkey-based Floteks A.Ş., said infrastructure products like toilets can be difficult to make and face intense competition from other materials like concrete and other plastics processes, like injection molding.

    “You should understand the challenge of infrastructure products, they are not easy,” he said. “You need standards, you need design.”

    Floteks has set up a technical collaboration with Indian plastics processor Vectus Industries Ltd. to make PE sewer system equipment using rotational molding. A Vectus executive told the conference that it was a good decision for his firm to work with Flotek, which has 30 years of experience making the products.

    “They are all engineered products, they look simple to make but they are not,” said Ashish Baheti, managing director of the Noida, India-based firm. “When we started talking to Floteks, we thought we could do it ourselves, but over a period of time, I realized it was a good decision [to collaborate].”

    He said the market requires knowledge of regulatory requirements, product design, an understanding of how sewer pipes work and good decisions about material selection: “If you miss even one of the chains, you will not have a good product.”

    India's rotational molding industry is overwhelmingly focused on above-ground water tanks, which speakers said are relatively simple to manufacture, at least compared to toilets and sewer products. Several presentations said above-ground tanks account for more than 80 percent of India's rotational molding production.

    One topic of the conference was diversifying into other markets, like automotive parts or leisure products, similar to rotomolding in Europe. While noting that's important, a conference organizer said demand will still be strong in infrastructure markets.

    “If you look at the country, and where it's real needs are, you look at the infrastructure, which is many things, health, sanitation, Clean India, solid waste management and underground storage tanks,” said Ravi Mehra, founding chairman of Indian group and managing director of Norstar International LLC in Cedarburg, Wis.

    Read Steve Toloken's BRICS and Plastics blog post on "Plastics, the Millennium Development Goals and Clean India."

    RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
    Georgia home to new PET chemical recycling plant
    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? Plastics News would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor at [email protected]

    Most Popular
    1
    Tornadoes, severe weather impact Texas resin plants
    2
    Dow cutting 2,000 jobs, ‘evaluating ... global asset base'
    3
    Guilty plea in scheme involving $4.1M in fraudulent polymer sales
    4
    MAPP survey shows ‘struggling' plastics processing sector
    5
    Plastics firms work to eliminate PFAS use as pressure mounts
    SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE NEWSLETTERS
    EMAIL ADDRESS

    Please enter a valid email address.

    Please enter your email address.

    Please verify captcha.

    Please select at least one newsletter to subscribe.

    Get our newsletters

    Staying current is easy with Plastics News delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge.

    Subscribe today

    Subscribe to Plastics News

    Subscribe now
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram

    Plastics News covers the business of the global plastics industry. We report news, gather data and deliver timely information that provides our readers with a competitive advantage.

    Contact Us

    1155 Gratiot Avenue
    Detroit MI 48207-2997

    Customer Service:
    877-320-1723

    Resources
    • About
    • Staff
    • Editorial Calendar
    • Media Kit
    • Data Store
    • Digital Edition
    • Custom Content
    • People
    • Contact
    • Careers
    • Sitemap
    Related Crain Publications
    • Sustainable Plastics
    • Rubber News
    • Tire Business
    • Urethanes Technology
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Copyright © 1996-2023. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Processor News
        • Injection Molding
        • Blow Molding
        • Film & Sheet
        • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
        • Rotomolding
        • Thermoforming
        • Recycling
      • Suppliers
        • Machinery
        • Materials
        • Molds/Tooling
        • Product news
        • Design
      • More News
        • K Show
        • Mergers & Acquisitions
        • Sustainability
        • Public Policy
        • Material Insights Videos
        • Numbers that Matter
      • Digital Edition
      • End Markets
        • Automotive
        • Packaging
        • Medical
        • Consumer Products
        • Construction
      • Special Reports
        • Processor of the Year
        • Best Places to Work
        • Women Breaking the Mold
        • Rising Stars
        • Diversity
        • Most Interesting Social Media Accounts in Plastics
      • Newsletters
      • Resin pricing news
      • Videos
    • Opinion
      • The Plastics Blog
      • Kickstart
      • One Good Resin
      • Pellets and Politics
      • All Things Data
      • Viewpoint
      • From Pillar to Post
      • Perspective
      • Mailbag
      • Fake Plastic Trees
    • Shop Floor
      • Blending
      • Compounding
      • Drying
      • Injection Molding
      • Purging
      • Robotics
      • Size Reduction
      • Structural Foam
      • Tooling
      • Training
    • Events
      • K Show Livestream
      • Plastics News Events
        • Plastics News Executive Forum
        • Injection Molding & Design Expo
        • Plastics News Caps & Closures
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
        • Plastics in Automotive
      • Industry Events
      • Injection Molding & Design Expo
      • Livestreams/Webinars
        • PN Live: Mergers and Acquisitions
      • Editorial Livestreams
        • Polymer Points Live
        • Numbers that Matter Live
        • Plastics in Politics Live
        • Sustainable Plastics Live
      • Ask the Expert
      • Plastics News Events Library
        • Plastics Caps & Closures Library
        • Plastics in Healthcare Library
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
      • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Rankings & Data
      • Injection Molders
      • Blow Molders
      • Film Sheet
      • Thermoformers
      • Pipe Profile Tubing
      • Rotomolders
      • Mold/Toolmakers
      • LSR Processors
      • Recyclers
      • Compounders - List
      • Association - List
      • Plastic Lumber - List
      • All
    • Directory
    • Resin Prices
      • Commodity TPs
        • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
      • High Temp TPs
        • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
      • ETPs
        • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
      • Thermosets
        • Historic Thermosets
      • Recycled Plastics
        • Historic Recycled Plastics
    • Custom
      • Sponsored Content
      • LS Mtron Sponsored Content
      • Conair Sponsored Content
      • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
      • ENGEL Sponsored Content
      • White Papers
      • Classifieds
        • Place an Ad
        • Sign up for Early Classified