Future Film, a subsidiary of the ENPI Group’s Future Plast, is offering an expanded range of speciality films with improved environmental qualities along with practical benefits, reports Benjamin Daniel.
Future Film manufactures a full range of speciality films, including ‘Glacier’ shrink film, that ensure optimal hygiene for food applications. Products cover food and beverage applications, including perishable and frozen foods, and are designed to be easy to use, cost effective and recyclable.
Innovative packaging enables customers to enhance branding and product image. Future Film also produces greenhouse film for optimal crop growth, along with shopping and courier bags and industrial films such as barrier tapes for construction sites. Oxo biodegradable shrink film is totally degradable and produced with low energy consumption.
Future Film products have high tensile strength, are resistant to bursting, puncturing and chemical reactions and are gas impermeable even in stressed conditions.
Benjamin Daniel: Can you give us a brief history of Future Film?
Durgesh Ahuja (General manager, Future Film – ENPI Group): This was our first project when we started in 1995. Between 2001 and 2002 we started expanding, and these were not just vertical but horizontal expansions. We invested in new products and simultaneously diversified into other divisions too. In 2002 we started with Future Card for plastic cards, then came up the labels division and the PET division. Last was Future Flex for flexible packaging.
BD: In 1995 when you started Future Film, what were you manufacturing here?
DA: We started with manufacturing shopping and supermarket bags. The idea for this division came when we got enquiries from CIS and Africa. Later, we got the idea to cater to the construction industry – this was around 1997. We started making monolayer shrink films from 2001 onwards and are still doing it. We adapted to new technologies in shrink films and today we are doing multilayer high clarity collation shrink films.
These are downgauged films, where we have downgauged up to 30–40%. We got our first multilayer line from Taiwan in May 2001. We also got a CI flexo press from Taiwan, when CI flexo technology was new, also in the same year. In 2004 we got our first multilayer line from Reifenhäuser, Germany, a three-layer line. Then every year we were adding one line up to 2008.
In 2008 we got two lines, a five-layer line for making barrier films and a double-bubble five-layer line to make polyolefinic shrink films from Europe. So this was the time when we had major expansions, between 2003 and 2008.
After 2008 there was the downturn. Yet we were the only company who were still investing and paying our suppliers. We had just finished investing when the recession started and it became difficult for us to manage too, because the prices came down and the margins were less. Being a technically good company, we could pull through those times.
Now we process around 1800 tons of plastic every month. For shopping bags, we have around 30–35% market share for UAE. Out of the 1,800 tons that we do every month, we do around 900 tons of multilayer films for lamination, which we supply to convertors like Future Flex. Here we have around 75% market share. We are the major suppliers for this.
We also have a special product, a sandwich film, which we use for aluminium composite panels. We are the only manufacturers for this in the region. For coalition shrink films we have more than 50–60% market share. Thus we are one of the biggest manufacturers of plastic films in the region.
BD: Any new investments?
DA: We are going in for some more expansions which will be announced later this year. We are the first and only manufacturer of POF (polyolefin shrink films). It is a intricate product. These are 12–25µm shrink films used for bundle wrapping. It is a double bubble manufacturing process.
The first bubble is 300–380µm and the second is 12–25µm. It is a very clear film. We started this project in 2008–2009. Now its capacity is full and we feel we are ready to go for the second one also. So a new machine for this is in the process and we will confirm it soon. Another investment is to cater to the construction industry, which is picking up in Dubai now. In the next two to three months we will be investing in new lines. These are immediate investments. We also have other investments, which may be a little later.
BD: What measures are you taking on environmental issues with plastic?
DA: We all are responsible for the environment and we don’t want to be branded as responsible for harming the environment. We are following developments in sustainability and plastics. We are in constant contact with raw material suppliers in doing a continuous research in down-gauging the films as much as possible.
For example, if it was 80µm we down gauge it to 60–55µm. This means we are dumping 30% less plastic into the market. Secondly, we now use only biodegradable shopping bags. So all the shopping bags we do are biodegradable. When we extrude the films for certain applications like shopping bags and supermarket bags, we add a fixed quantity of biodegradable additive. This is a catalyst, which starts the reaction of breaking down the polymer chain when it receives a quantity of sunlight and moisture.
Polymer is a long chain of monomers which does not break on its own. With the additive, the plastic gets degraded within 18–24 months when deposited in a landfill and gets converted into biomass and water. Plastics take up to a year to reach the consumer. There are developments happening wherein we get the raw material biodegradable plastic with some restrainers. This ingredient in the plastic will delay the chain reaction to start from a perion of six months to a year depending on the quantity added to the biodegradable plastic.
BD: Where are you in terms of recycling?
DA: We have two recycling machines in our factory. We recycle some of our internal make-ready waste and sell the rest to recyclers. Any recycled material cannot be compared to virgin material. We use only clear recycled materials in less critical applications, say for construction rolls, which are put on the ground to build the surface.
Recyclers recycle it too and it goes for injection moulding for bathroom items like buckets, mugs and jars. We try not to harm the environment; we either recycle it or sell it.
BD: What’s your view on the problem of litter?
DA: We need to educate people on the environment and our responsibilities towards the environment. Even with biodegradable plastic, before it degrades, it will get fragmented and with wind can pollute the air.
BD: Will flexible material continue to grow or will carton overtake it?
DA: Cartons also need paper, pulp and are not fully environment friendly. So they aren’t a very good alternative. Recycling is the mantra for both cartons and plastics. Public awareness is also key to saving the environment from these materials. As for cartons taking our share, it’s not going to happen so soon since it is heavy and costlier.