Industry needs to focus on sustainable packaging materials: Comm Secy

Industry needs to focus on sustainable packaging materials as one can not allow them to be a source of waste to spoil the environment, a top government official said on Thursday.

Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan said that packaging material should be biodegradable, re-usable and recyclable.

"We need to focus on this aspect. We cannot allow packaging to be a source of waste... littering the environment, spoiling the ecosystem and cause potential damage to animals," he said.

He was addressing a national conference on packaging, organised by Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP) here.

"We need to address this by making right choice of material," he said.

Further, Wadhawan said that there was a need encourage entrepreneurship and skilling to promote growth of the sector.

Speaking about the sector, IIP Joint Director Madhab Chakraborty said that the current Indian market size of the sector is about USD 32 billion.

He said three new centres of the institute are coming up at Guwahati, Bangalore, and Andhra Pradesh.

"We have got land for all these three centres," he said adding that there was huge demand in the sector for industry to work on innovative environment-friendly materials.

The IIP is a national apex body which was set up in 1966 by the packaging and allied industries and the Ministry of Commerce with the specific objective of improving the packaging standards in the country.

The institute is an autonomous body working under the administrative control of the ministry.