Plastic Products - Historical Overview and Industrial Importance

Plastic Products: - In the last few decades, plastic industry has grown to become India's one of the leading sectors with a sizable base. Since 1957, which witnessed a promising beginning with the production of polystyrene, plastic products have gained notable importance in different spheres of activity with an ever increasing per capita consumption. With continuous advancements and developments in polymer technology, processing machineries, and cost effective manufacturing, plastic is fast replacing the typical materials in different segments.

The Industry:- On the basis of our study, following are some of the notable facts:

• India's plastic industry is about 0.5% of India's GDP.
• The export of plastic products yields about 1% of the domestic exports.
• 50% turnover of the plastic industry is derived from the small scale companies where it has a large presence
• Production of the plastic provides employment to an estimate of about 0.4 million people in the country
• The processing of the plastic products involve approximately Rs 100 billion as an investment in the form of fixed assets
• 20% of the industry turnover comes from small scale enterprises
• Only 10 to 15% of the total market players can be categorized as medium scale enterprises

Type Of Plastic Products:-

Some of the major plastic products manufactured and exported from India can be categorized under the following headings:-

Raw Materials like PVC, polypropylene, polyethylene, polystyrene etc.

Packaging Materials like a range of plastic sheeting and films, pouches,

crates, bottles, containers, barrels, cans etc

Films like Polyester film, multilayer films, photo films etc

Consumer Goods like toothbrushes, cleaning brushes, hair brushes, nail

and cosmetic brushes, combs, molded furniture (chairs,

tables, etc.) House ware, kitchenware, and many such

other durables.

Writing Instruments like Pens, ball pens, markers, sign pens, refills, etc.

Travel ware like molded luggage, soft luggage, a range of bags like school

bags / ladies handbags, wallets, etc.

Water Storage Tanks Toys and Games Engineering Plastics

Electrical Accessories

Safety helmets

Sanitary Fittings

Construction Materials like PVC profiles, doors, windows, etc.

An Overview:-

The Indian plastic industry is growing at a fast pace. However, with an increasing economical liberalization competition in this industry is expected to increase considerably. To survive the growing competition, the following adjustments need to be adopted by our manufacturers and suppliers:

• Cost reduction by adopting more radical methods and approaches
• Putting more stress on the processing stage to reduce time and cost associated with the manufacturing of the final products

Although, the per capita consumption of plastic products in India is well below the world average, the country will continue to be one of the largest sources of plastic products.