The Indian Pulp & Paper Industry, since the post-COVID-19 pandemic, has not witnessed even a full year with a stable performance, due to various geopolitical scenarios, starting from the Russia-Ukraine war, Red Sea crisis, Israel-Iran and USA-Iran wars, till now. With this ongoing USA-Iran war situation, the supply chain has been thrown out of gear and the whole global logistics is under great stress and mess. 

As the ocean freight and the surcharges have abnormally increased due to longer routes and the lack of vessels, coupled with regulatory norms like PIMS (Paper Import Monitoring Systems), European wastepaper regulations and the pre-shipment inspection delays, etc., have pushed the import lead time for the wastepaper availability to the Indian recycled fibre-based paper mills. Even if the mills are ready to pay the higher import price, the imported wastepaper in select grades is not available in time. 

On the other hand, the quality of the wastepaper raw material has drifted on the negative side, due to the lower collection and segregation globally and also the availability for the exports from the originating countries. The quality of the wastepaper in select grades like OCC, ADSOCC and ONP has come down substantially in the last couple of years, making it very difficult for the Indian paper mills to meet the stringent quality specifications of the final products like high-burst Kraft paper and high-bulk coated packaging boards. 

Despite the inferior quality of the wastepaper stock, higher price and longer lead time, the Indian paper and board mills are importing almost 50-60% of their wastepaper requirement, just because of the poor collection and segregation of the local domestic wastepaper. In India, the collection and recycling of the different grades of wastepaper is hardly at 48-50%, in comparison to the level of 80% in the developed countries. In India, almost 30% of the usable good wastepaper ends up in landfill and litter as garbage, which is a painful situation. 

The situation will improve only when the public starts segregation of different kinds of waste generated at source itself. Though the Indian government is promoting the recycling of all sorts of segregated waste in their respective industries, it is because of the poor wastepaper collection, segregation and baling mechanism that the gap is ever widening, and the mills depend on 60% imported wastepaper. As a result, India is a net fibre importer, for running the paper and board mills. When we are the third/fourth largest producer of paper and boards globally and the population is huge, why do we need to import waste from the Middle East, Europe or from the USA, with such a huge cost in the whole system? This needs to be understood and acted upon, with a lot more seriousness. 

What we need at this juncture is the awareness of the ecological balance, steadfast approach towards the robust collection, segregation and distribution mechanism of the usable fibres to stay independent of other nations, with the strong commitment. We can think of huge collection centres, involving NGOs and retired committed officials, regionally in each town and district-wise, in every state of India. Once the collection is done, segregate various qualities of useful fibres for various grades of production with nice baling and then distributing to various paper mills. This system, once developed, will go a long way, for the benefit of the Indian Paper Industry. 

The current system of depending on the developed nations, when we are aspiring to be the fourth largest economy, for the import of the wastepaper, in the current geopolitical situation is too risky to operate the mill without any level playing field viz. the overseas manufacturers of paper and packaging boards. The operating margins for a bigger mill have become wafer-thin and the smaller mills are hardly trying to break even and survive. 

The way we have done for the freshwater conservation in the last two decades, by effectively reducing and recycling with proper chemical & mechanical treatments and rainwater harvesting through water bodies inside and outside the mill premises, we need to take proactive measures to collect the fibre source locally and become competitive globally. 

The time has come ripe that there will be a momentum in the recycling field, with a lot more younger population taking the lead role in every sphere, good time is ahead with more and more focus on eco-labelling. 

SVR Krishnan is the CEO of Sripathi Paper & Board Pvt. Ltd.

" Despite the inferior quality of the wastepaper stock, higher price and longer lead time, the Indian paper and board mills are importing almost 50-60% of their wastepaper requirement."