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Wrapping It In Green

Wrapping It In Green

Author: Newly Paul
Publication: India Today
Date: April 24, 2006

Introduction: A marketing consultant finds an eco-friendly way to package steel, save costs and conserve forests

Business, believe environmentalists, is the main culprit behind the depletion of tropical forests. Yet, few environment-friendly initiatives have come from big businesses. So when Himanshu Sheth, a marketing consultant in industrial products in Jamshedpur, got a project from Tata Steel to develop an eco-friendly option for packing steel, he decided to set the equation right.

The challenge was to develop an alternative to timber, which is used by major engineering industries and producers of steel and aluminium for one-time use as support and separators for transportation. After the consignment reaches the destination, the wood is discarded, and huge amounts of timber go waste.

"I started my assignment in November 1996 with rubber, high-density polyethylene and elastomers. But I realised the solution lies in nature," says Sheth. While these manmade products help conserve forests, they create an ecological hazard, as India does not have an effective recycling system. Sheth's biggest challenge, thus, lay in designing a biodegradable solution.

"I used bamboo, jute and coir to produce a packaging material, Coir Atlas, which was tried successfully by Tata Steel. However, being more expensive than wooden runners, it was commercially unviable," he says. To reduce the cost, he replaced coir with jute.

Tests by the National Test House, Kolkata, and by the Bokaro Steel Plant proved that Coir Atlas provided the best grip for packing steel products. Following this, in May 2004, the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, joined him as a technology partner for the development of Coir Atlas. In August 2005 he was granted a patent for his innovation. "This will be used for shipping steel in the coil form," explains Sheth. Efforts to make Railways see the benefits of Coir Atlas have been futile so far as, according to one Railway official, the consequences of a failed trial can be disastrous.

Apart from saving forests and being biodegradable, Coir Atlas does not leave scratch marks on the surface of steel, weighs less than wood and cannot be tampered with while the consignment is in transit. One feet of Coir Atlas can carry 50 tonnes of steel. The jute provides grip while the bamboo bears the load. Its production leads to employment at the small-scale level and helps the industry save 25 per cent of its packaging costs. When it comes to saving the environment, what's better than saving trees, the green pillars that support the earth.


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