The Tamil Nadu Plastics Manufacturers’ Association (TAPMA) will organise a four-day international plastics exhibition, IPLAS 2022, at Chennai Trade Centre in Nandambakkam from June 10 aimed to promote industry and encourage safe mechanisms for recycling of plastics.
TAPMA president S. Rakkappan told presspersons here on Monday that that in an effort to create awareness about the benefits of plastics among the general public, the exhibition will have a theme pavilion, titled “A World of Plastics – a Right View”.
He said the exhibition was expected to give a fillip to Tamil Nadu’s ₹15,000-crore plastics industry comprising 8,000 plus factories, which provide direct and indirect employment to 3,00,000 and 5,00,000 people respectively. Small scale units account for 85% of the industry, which contributes ₹2,700 crore as GST annually.
B. Swaminathan, Chairman - Environment Committee, TAPMA, said the expo would have a special recycling pavilion to demonstrate how plastic waste was converted into granules and then again into finished products in line with the ideals of a circular economy. New inventions such as recyclable multi-layered laminates and plastics wrappers used for packaging, hitherto considered non-recyclable, would be among the exhibits.
TAPMA was committed to promoting compact safe recyclers. “We will be working with various corporations and municipalities to install these recyclers for better plastic waste management and recycling. These compact safe recyclers will work with single-phase power supply and help ragpickers and other NGOs with higher value addition in their efforts. These technologies will ensure higher recovery of plastics waste from the municipal garbage. In a span of a few years, we expect the presence of plastics in the garbage to drop from 7% to 2%,” he added.
Entry to the exhibition is free.