Gandhinagar, Jan 5 : The plastic industry is willing to support any government initiative aimed at evolving a consensus on deterrent punishment for those who manufacture plastic carrybags of less than 20 microns in violation of existing laws.

"We will support a government initiative for a consensus on providing a jail term for such law violators," Jigish Doshi, chairman of the "Plexpo India 2010" - India's largest exhibition for plastic and packaging industry commencing in Ahmedabad Jan 9 - told mediapersons here Tuesday.

Noting the present rules providing for penalty were proving ineffective in deterring those involved in making plastic carry-bags of less than 20 microns, he stressed the need for prison terms as a deterrent.

"We would like to assure the authorities that the associations of plastic manufacturers themselves would help the authorities to identify such errant manufacturers and put them behind the bar," Doshi said, adding the plastic manufacturers were "equally concerned about the environment as anyone else".

Doshi contested the claim that any non-biodegradable plastic material was a threat to the environment.

"The problem is only with the very thin carry-bags of less than 20 microns which constitute less than one per cent of the total plastic materials manufactured in the country. Plastic is recycled in great measure with new products being manufactured from the old ones, thus disposal problems are automatically eliminated," he said.

Advocating replacement of cement and steel components with plastic in many products, he noted plastic manufacturing was comparatively less polluting, non-toxic and caused zero emission.

The 90,000 unit strong national plastic manufacturing industry processes over six million tonnes of polymer per annum while another about 7.5 million tonnes of plastic is re-cycled. "Future demand is projected to increase the processing of polymer to about 20 million tones," he added.

The four-day exhibition is being organised in association with Plastindia Foundation and the Gujarat government. More than 400 exhibitors from 12 countries like China, Singapore, the UAE, Canada, the US, Italy, Switzerland and South Korea are slated to participate in the exhibition, which is held once every three years.(IANS)