[Urbanstudy] TETRA PAK RECYCLING FACTORY BURNS DOWN TO EXPOSE THE SWEDISH GIANT

Thu Jul 7 20:55:01 IST 2011

*Fire at Recycling Plant brings out startling facts of Mafia like activities
of Swedish packaging giant and Indian NGOs into light:*

On June 27th 2011, a fire broke out in Daman Ganga Paper mills limited which
caused burning of over 8000 tons of imported Tetra Pak waste stored there
for recycling. Daman Ganga paper mills located in Vapi, Gujarat, is the only
paper mill in India where 100% recycling of used Tetra Pak cartons is done.

The company started Tetra Pak cartons’ recycling project in year 2004 on
trial basis. Since year 2008 it has been recycling these cartons full
fledged. The paper mill which caught fire was a sick unit on the verge of
being shut down before Tetra Pak identified it to recycle its used juice and
milk cartons.

“Tetra Pak made 100% investment in Daman Ganga paper mill and helped Mr.
Tushar Shah (Proprietor, Daman Ganga Paper mills limited) to set up an
exclusive used Tetra Pak cartons recycling facility”, says Mr. Zeeshan Khan,
manager environment at Tetra Pak, “the reason I feel for such investment was
that no paper mill in India agrees to recycle Tetra Pak cartons because of
technical difficulties during pulping them”. “Daman Ganga attracted
attention of Tetra Pak because of its close location to Mumbai port, which
is helpful for us to get foreign waste at lower freights, secondly, it was
always easy for us to set out terms of work because Daman Ganga needed
investment as it was bankrupt”.

 “Above all, Tetra Pak had been looking for an existing infrastructure in
India, which could be utilized with more of motivation and less of
investment. Tetra Pak needed a recycler who could take care of its waste
being generated globally.”

Once the infrastructure was set, Daman Ganga paper mill came with a gigantic
recycling capacity of 100 tons of cartons per day (Down to Earth Magazine
July 01-15, 2010 issue, page 48). In beginning of year 2011 Mr. Shah
announced a 10 times increase in recycling capacity of the paper mill. This
means today Daman Ganga paper mill can recycle 30000 tons of Tetra Pak
cartons in a month.

Having said that, where does such a large quantity of Tetra Pak cartons come
from? As informed by Mr. Khan about Tetra Pak cartons collection, Delhi
sends 20 tons of cartons per month, Bangalore sends around 25 tons, Mumbai
15 tons , Pune 15 tons. The paper mill gets some waste from our customers
Dabur, Nestle, Parle Agro, PepsiCo India and Coca-Ccola India. Rest of the
waste is imported from countries where Tetra Pak cartons can not be recycled
or landfilled due to strict environmental legislations.

Tetra Pak cartons are purchased @ Rs 4  per kilo from foreign countries, as
Daman Ganga has to bear only freight cost to get them dumped in India.

In India a paper mill has to cough up a sum of Rs 12 per kilo of these
cartons. Tetra Pak company has to reimburse money to paper mill at the rate
of Rs 5 to Rs 6 per kilo for Indian waste. In case of imported material
Tetra Pak does not have to reimburse anything to paper mill. This is one of
the basic reasons behind import of Tetra Pak cartons. It is sad that Daman
Ganga and Tetra Pak can not find enough cartons to recycle from world’s
second most populous country. On this Mr Khan says, “Our collecting partners
are wrongly identified NGOs, and none of them is serious about recycling or
environment”. “NGOs have not only failed but have jeopardized collection
system of Tetra Pak cartons since day one”. “We have been misled on fields,
in school programs, in collection of cartons and now the whole system has
become a vicious cycle” he shares.

Paper mills have to follow strict rules laid down by government to avoid
accidents and so they have high standard fire safety and fire fighting
arrangements. Nothing of this sort exists in Daman Ganga paper mill. The
infrastructure of paper mill is low cost, wherein most machinery used is
either second hand, or made of low cost below standard materials. Some
conveyors which require heat insulation are made up of Poly-Al sheets
(obtained by recycling Tetra Pak cartons), which are neither certified nor
approved by any agency, private or government, for purpose of insulation.

As part of internal development program for its employees, Tetra Pak
organizes regular exposure visits of its employees to Daman Ganga paper mill
either with media or with other delegates to show them recycling of
multilayered cartons. The whole system was being carried out under close
watch of Tetra Pak, putting tremendous pressure on paper mill to increase
its operational capacity and increase recycling. With no further investments
from Tetra Pak, Daman Ganga failed to install standard equipments in time,
as it was left with very little money after purchase of raw materials.

In a detailed discussion Mr. Khan informed that Daman Ganga paper mill had
imported 5000 tons of used Tetra Pak cartons in June; out of these 1500 tons
was insured stock. The whole lot was burnt to ashes. The cause of fire is
still unknown and losses have still to be calculated. But some people still
believe that the stock was deliberately burnt, as Daman Ganga wanted to
extract Aluminum from cartons and sell it, instead of recycling these
cartons which, otherwise would have taken much longer time to yield any
income. This was the reason behind insuring only 1500 tons of cartons.

Mr. Khan shared an email sent by Daman Ganga paper mills to all its clients,
after this fire broke out:

*Dear All,*

*We have recently had a terrible fire at our recycling plant and the
operations have temporarily stopped. The Waste Paper can not be unloaded at
our plant.*

* *

*So please do not send any material till our further notice and also during
this tenure payment shall not be released.*

*We will highly appreciate your support during this time.*

* *

*Thanks & Regards*

* *

*Vanita Bhadra*

*Daman Ganga Recycled Resources LLP*

*1525,GIDC,Ambheti,*

*via Vapi - Koparli Road,*

*Gujarat** - 396 191*

*Tel:+91 260 2390001,2,3*

*Mbl:+91 98256 10005*

*     +91 98256 10008*

 WITH REGARDS TO ALL MEMBERS

JAGJIVAN SINGH
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20110707/84a2763a/attachment-0001.html>