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R. Balaji

Chennai, Aug. 21 ITC’s Paperboards and Specialty Papers division is expanding its waste paper collection programme in South India. It has launched the programme in Chennai through a tie-up with leading IT companies and is in talks with local bodies to reach residential areas.

Waste paper is the primary raw material for the division, which recycles the paper to produce paperboards to make packaging materials. In the absence of an organised waste paper collection system, the company now meets half its daily requirement of waste paper through imports.

ITC has two mills making paperboards — a 1,000-tonne-a-day mill at Bhadrachalam, Andhra Pradesh and a 300-tonne-a-day mill at Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. It needs an equal quantity of waste paper daily — old newspaper, magazines, boards — as raw material.

According to Mr S. Murugesan, Senior Manager (Materials), ITC Ltd - Paperboards & Specialty Papers Division, mills depending on waste paper for recycling are facing a shortage of raw material, whether imported or domestic, and increasing costs because of growing demand as mills expand.

This is driving up the cost of waste paper, which has gone up to around Rs 10 a kg, nearly double of what it used to cost a year back in the local markets. Imported waste paper is also becoming costlier. At Coimbatore, the company now imports about 150 tonnes of waste paper daily at about $150-500 a tonne (Rs 6,000-20,000 a tonne) from developed countries which have an organised waste collection system and manage to recycle at least 70 per cent of the paper.

Mr Murugesan said that India produces about 8 million tonnes of paper and paperboards, annually, but only about a fifth of it is recycled. Most of the material is lost in garbage or burnt in the absence of an organised collection system. Lack of source segregation results in waste paper being contaminated and becoming unusable. There is a huge potential to expand raw material availability with proper waste collection, he said.

ITC launched the waste paper collection initiative last year in select areas in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Coimbatore and is now expanding it to more areas in South India, including Chennai. In Andhra Pradesh it is talking to the State Government to expand the programme State wide.

In Chennai, it has tied up with 30-40 IT companies including Infosys, IBM, Wipro, which would sell their waste paper to ITC for recycling. It also hopes to tie up with residential associations, NGOs and local bodies to expand the waste paper collection programme to large residential areas.

The company will distribute waste bins to ensure source segregation and buy the waste paper for Rs 5 a kg. As a part of the programme it also buys other recyclable waste which it sells to others who recycle the material such as plastic. Mr Murugesan said that the company now gets about 75 tonnes of waste paper a month in Hyderabad, 50 tonnes from Bangalore and 20-25 tonnes from Coimbatore. It hopes to expand the programme over the next five years to do away with waste imports, he said.

More Stories on : Environment | Business Models | Paper | rd & Newsprint | I T C Ltd

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