One day workshop on Opportunities of plastic and plastic waste management

The Post Graduate Department of Chemistry, Khalsa College Amritsar organized a one day workshop on the topic “Opportunities of plastic and plastic waste management” on13^thSeptember 2018in the Seminar Hall of the College. Director and Head of Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET): Centre for skilling and technical support was the guest speaker of the event. The seminar was attended by graduate, post-graduate students and faculty members of chemistry department, Khalsa College Amritsar.

                Dr. M.S. Batra, Head, Department of Chemistry and Coordinator of the event welcomed Dr. Upinder Pal Singh and histeam from CIPETand thanked them for organizing plastic awareness workshop in the college. Dr. Batra also introduced the workshop theme to the participants by highlighting the importance of plastic in our day to day life and the problems associated with its recycling or dumping in the environment as waste.

Principal Dr. Mehal Singh welcomed the chief guest Dr. Upinder Pal Singh and his team and thanked them for sparing their valuable time for gracing the occasion.  He emphasized that science and technology is bringing new and better materials, which have eased our lives tremendously. He also shared that the plastic pipes are very fast replacing conventional metal pipes which are not only prone to corrosion but are also expensive. He stressed that there is a strong need to familiarize the students and faculty members with the recent advances and developments by organizing such workshops. He encouraged the students to participate and interact with the eminent resource persons since this will help them to understand the subject, boost their confidence and motivate job opportunities beyond academic reigns.

                Dr. RandhirSingh, coordinatorDunncliff Chemical society introduced the speaker and the lecture theme to the participants.

While addressing the audience, Dr. U. P. Singh, introduced CIPET to the audience and shared that 40 centres are running all over India and institute have trained more than 50,000 students. In his first lecture on the theme,  “Plastic the Wonder Material”, he discussed how properties of plastic like corrosion resistance, chemical resistance, lower cost and long service life etc. have made it a wonderful material in today’s life. Plastic products have become an integral part of our daily life as a basic need.  Plasticsoffer the consumer market a seemingly ideal blend of durability and affordability, resulting in its rapid replacement of natural materials in many settings.  A notable example included plastic fabrics for clothing which were strong, lightweight and easy to clean with added benefits of wind or rain protection.  An approximate 40% of the daily plastics use is directed towards packaging applications.  Their low cost, durability, transparency and gas/moisture barrier functions are ideally suited to the shipping needs of so many industry sectors, particularly the global food market. He explained how plastics are used in every field of life like in automobile, electricity, in medical science as disposable syringes, catheter devices, in hips and knees replacement and vascular graft.

 According FICCI, Indians consume 11 kg of plastic per year in comparison to 109 kg by an average American. By 2020, plastics consumption of the country is expected to reach20 million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA). Its broad range of application is in packaging films, wrapping materials, shopping and garbage bags, fluid containers, clothing, toys, household and industrial products, and building materials. It is a fact that plastics will never degrade and remains on landscape for several years.

In his second lecture on the topic Plastic Waste management, Dr. U.P.Singh discussedvarious strategies for plastic waste management that include prevention, reuse, recycle and energy recovery. The recycled plastics are more harmful to the environment than thevirgin products due to mixing of colour, additives, stabilizers, flame retardants etc.He discussed that several better plastic waste management techniques are now available to convert plastic waste into useful products. One of these is to incorporateplastic waste in road construction. Thebitumencoated with plastic is being used for roads construction and such roads have better water resistance as well as durability than the normally constructed roads. Plasma Pyrolysis Technology (PPT) is a recently developed technique for plastic waste management; it has enabled to dispose of all types of plastic wasteincluding polymeric, biomedical and hazardous waste in a safe and reliable manner.

Prof. B.K.Basra on the behalf ofChemistry Department delivereda vote of thanks to the guest speaker for providing valuable information.On this occasion Dr. HarvinderKaur, Dr. KirandeepKaur, Dr. Taminder Singh, Dr. JasjitKaurRandhawa, Dr. KanwaljitKaur, Dr. Randhir Singh, Dr. BaljinderKaurRandhawa, Dr. AmitAnand, Dr. Kultar Singh, Dr. Punita, Dr. Seema, Dr. Navalpreetkaur, Dr. MohamadArshad, Dr. HarkeeratKaur, Dr. J.S. Gandhi and all other faculty member of department were present.