Economy & Market

We were the first to introduce tamper-proof laminated PP bags

Published

7 years ago

January 7, 2019

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What is the importance of packaging in cement production and distribution and what are the latest advancements that are taking place?
Packaging is a significant factor in cement production and distribution with significant emphasis on product protection, shelf appearance, cost margins and sustainability targets. Since approximately 65 per cent of the cement consumption is from the housing segment, primarily from the IHB’s, the focus is on mobilising the product to semi-urban and rural areas economically and damage free.

Up to 70s all cement bags used to be made of jute, which were zero moisture resistance and high spillage during handling and transportation. Post which switchover to plain woven polypropylene (PP) sacks took place. To upgrade the PP bags, concept of lamination was introduced which came with an increase in packaging and handling cost. Some manufacturers are also using BOPP laminated bags to enhance brand value. Talking about the latest advancements, the concepts of 2 – 3 ply paper bags are emerging gradually. These bags are biodegradable and protect the inside materials well, only disadvantage being the cost and handling care – which again pushes up the cost.

While the focus is on cement packaging, I would like to throw some light on some of the pioneering initiatives that we have taken in concrete packaging. Nuvoco was one of the first building materials company to introduce wet ready-to-use premixed range of concrete and mortar "Instamix" in 35 kg bags. The main idea behind this innovative move was to make concrete available to all irrespective of the area or place of their dwelling. With these ready-to-use concrete and mortar in bags Nuvoco has ensured cost-effective and easy construction in any location. It is easy to use on site, as placing and spreading is more efficient.

Cost is an important factor besides product loss, shelf life and environmental factors in selection of packaging options in cement. How do various options stack up against all these parameters?
A reasonable amount of cost is incurred towards packaging. However, the customer appreciates the benefits of better packaging and is willing to pay the additional price. In terms of stacking up of various options, HDPE bags are the most cost effective followed by Laminated PP, BOPP and Paper bags. From the customer perspective what is most important is getting the net assured 50 kg cement in bag. They are ready to pay a premium for guaranteed weight and quality.

What is the packaging option you have zeroed in on and why? What are the factors one should look at while selecting the best packaging material? How anti-plastic movement will impact packaging in future?
Sustainable packaging is the underlying principle that Nuvoco follow which is replicated through our Laminated PP, moisture and tamper proof cement bags. Today, across industry, approximately three per cent of the cement produced is lost in the supply chain and this loss is largely attributed to the cement bags being stored in open environments and use of hooks for unloading across the supply chain, making them vulnerable to damages. At Nuvoco, we ensure that cement bags damaged due to normal wear and tear in transportation are sent to our Readymix Concrete plants across locations avoiding wastages.

Talking about the factors while selecting packaging material, Nuvoco always try to offer best products to its customers, maintaining a proper balance between quality, quantity, cost and environmental concerns. A sturdy cement bag is environment friendly and has a self-life of eight months to a year. Cement bag is generally reused three to four times for mobilizing sand, aggregates, rubbles, bricks and other materials thereby saving on other packing materials. Most of the cement bags degenerate because of exposure to UV rays and at the end of it degenerate into shreds.

Are you planning to mechanise or deploy robotics in packaging process?
Use of automation in cement packaging is imperative; all our packaging machines are calibrated to discharge exact quantity of cement ensuring higher consistency, speed and accuracy.

What is the importance you give for packaging material that improves visibility of your product and what suits the best?
In a product like cement, packaging plays an important role in protecting and enhancing shelf-life. We, at Nuvoco, keep reviewing developments in this space. Nuvoco was the pioneer in introducing Concreto in tamper-proof laminated PP bags, which keeps the cement fresh and prevents adulteration. The idea was to bring disruptive packaging that was entirely unique to the industry, which would not only enhance the "premium" imagery of the brand but also address a longstanding practical concern.

Colour plays a vital role in brand building and recall, and which is why to enhance the visibility of our brand, we have reinforced, our brand colour (green) and significantly modern, orange and purple colours in packaging giving us strong identity in the IHB segment. We also use our packaging to educate customers on "Void Reduction Technology" and "Micro Fibre" used in our products. For our Duraguard brand we have introduced tamper proof bags in north because when we conducted a research it showed concerns of duplication of the brand and in order to reinforce our quality and commitment to the customers we started double stitching on our bags to assure consumer on our quality. The customer looks for more than just information on cement bags and our efforts in packaging have set us above and apart from others enabling in strengthening our brand recall. Also, our customer promise and USP is boldly stated on our packaging…

What are your views on the potential demand dynamics of bulk packaging of cement as against retail packaging?
The housing segment accounts for approximately 65 per cent of the cement consumption, with Affordable housing and IHBs being the major consumers. The IHB’s tend to buy in small lots with constraints in storage space and security of the material; hence the retail packaging dominates over bulk packaging at an overall level.

The demand dynamics could change when we talk about large projects, where the concept of smart silos (capacity up to 8 MT) is picking up where contractors are shifting towards buying bulk cement. Also, with the increase in ready-mix usage, the share of bulk cement is gradually increasing.

What is the growth that you expect in the cement industry in the next three years?
The past two years have witnessed a robust demand for cement and the momentum is expected to sustain on account of increased budgetary allocation towards infrastructure (including roads and railways), rural development and affordable housing demand in rural and urban areas especially under PMAY scheme.

The macroeconomic fundamentals are expected to improve on the back of sustained rise in consumption and government’s reform measures, fostering an environment to boost investments and ease banking sector concerns. Cement demand has a strong co-relation with the GDP growth with an empirically established ratio of 1.2x to 1.3x thus providing an outlook of approximately 8 per cent CAGR over next three years.

Economy & Market

TSR Will Define Which Cement Companies Win India’s Net-Zero Race

Published

5 days ago

April 27, 2026

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Jignesh Kundaria, Director and CEO, Fornnax Technology

India is simultaneously grappling with two crises: a mounting waste emergency and an urgent need to decarbonise its most carbon-intensive industries. The cement sector, the second-largest in the world and the backbone of the nation’s infrastructure ambitions, sits at the centre of both. It consumes enormous quantities of fossil fuel, and it has the technical capacity to consume something else entirely: the waste our cities cannot get rid of.

According to CPCB and NITI Aayog projections, India generates approximately 62.4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with that figure expected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030. Much of this waste is energy-rich and non-recyclable. At the same time, cement kilns operate at material temperatures of approximately 1,450 degrees Celsius, with gas temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees. This high-temperature environment is ideal for co-processing, ensuring the complete thermal destruction of organic compounds without generating toxic residues. The physics are in our favour. The infrastructure is not.

Pre-processing is not the support act for co-processing. It is the main event. Get the particle size wrong, get the moisture wrong, get the calorific value wrong and your kiln thermal stability will suffer the consequences.

The Regulatory Push Is Real

The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2026 mandate that cement plants progressively replace solid fossil fuels with Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), starting at a 5 per cent baseline and scaling to 15 per cent within six years. NITI Aayog’s 2026 Roadmap for Cement Sector Decarbonisation targets 20 to 25 per cent Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) by 2030. Beyond compliance, every tonne of coal replaced by RDF generates measurable carbon reductions which is monetisable under India’s emerging Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). TSR is no longer a sustainability metric. It is a financial lever.

Yet our own field assessments across multiple Indian cement plants reveal a sobering reality: the primary barrier to scaling AFR adoption is not waste availability. It is the fragmented and under-engineered pre-processing ecosystem that sits between the waste and the kiln.

Why Indian Waste Is a Different Engineering Problem

Indian municipal solid waste is not the material that imported shredding equipment was designed for. Our waste streams frequently exceed 40 per cent to 50 per cent moisture content, particularly during monsoon cycles, saturated with abrasive inerts including sand, glass, and stone. Plants relying on imported OEM equipment face months of downtime awaiting proprietary spare parts. Machines built for segregated, low-moisture waste fail quickly and disrupt the entire pre-processing operation in Indian conditions.

The two most common failures we observe are what I call the biting teeth problem and the chewing teeth problem. Plants relying solely on a primary shredder reduce bulk waste to large fractions, but the output remains too coarse for stable kiln combustion. Others attempt to use a secondary shredder as a standalone unit without a primary stage to pre-size the feed, leading to catastrophic mechanical failure. When both stages are present but mismatched in throughput capacity, the system becomes a bottleneck. Achieving the 40 to 70 tonnes per hour required for meaningful coal displacement demands a precisely coordinated two-stage process.

Engineering a Made-in-India Answer

At Fornnax, our response to these challenges is grounded in one principle: Indian waste demands Indian engineering. Our systems are built around feedstock homogeneity, the holy grail of kiln stability. Consistent particle size and predictable calorific value are the foundation of stable kiln combustion. Without them, no TSR target is achievable at scale.

Our SR-MAX2500 Dual Shaft Primary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive) processes raw, baled, or loosely mixed MSW, C&I waste, bulky waste, and plastics, reducing them to approximately 150 mm fractions at throughputs of up to 40 tonnes per hour. The R-MAX 3300 Single Shaft Secondary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive), introduced in 2025, takes that primary output and produces RDF fractions in the 30 to 80 mm range at up to 30 tonnes per hour, specifically optimised for consistent kiln feeding. We have also introduced electric drive configurations under the SR-100 HD series, with capacities between 5 and 40 tonnes per hour, already operational at a leading Indian waste-processing facility.

Looking ahead, Fornnax is expanding its portfolio with the upcoming SR-MAX3600 Hydraulic Drive primary shredder at up to 70 tonnes per hour and the R-MAX2100 Hydraulic drive secondary shredder at up to 20 tonnes per hour, designed specifically for the large-scale throughput that higher TSR ambitions require.

The Investment Case Is Now

The 2070 Net-Zero target is not a distant goal for India’s cement sector. It starts today, with decisions being made on the plant floor.

The SWM Rules 2026 are already in effect, requiring cement plants to replace coal with RDF. Carbon credit markets are opening up, and coal prices are not going to get cheaper. Every tonne of coal a cement plant replaces with waste-derived fuel saves money on one side and generates carbon credit revenue on the other. Pre-processing infrastructure is no longer just a compliance requirement. It is a business investment with a measurable return.

The good news is that nothing is missing. The technology works. The waste is available in every Indian city. The government has provided the policy direction. The only thing standing between where the industry is today and where it needs to be is the commitment to build the right infrastructure.

The cement companies that move now will not just meet the regulations. They will be ahead of every competitor that waits.

About The Author

Jignesh Kundaria is the Director and CEO of Fornnax Technology. Over an experience spanning more than two decades in the recycling industry, he has established himself as one of India’s foremost voices on waste-to-fuel technology and alternative fuel infrastructure.

Concrete

WCA Welcomes SiloConnect as associate corporate member

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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The World Cement Association (WCA) has announced SiloConnect as its newest associate corporate member, expanding its network of technology providers supporting digitalisation in the cement industry. SiloConnect offers smart sensor technology that provides real-time visibility of cement inventory levels at customer silos, enabling producers to monitor stock remotely and plan deliveries more efficiently. The solution helps companies move from reactive to proactive logistics, improving delivery planning, operational efficiency and safety by reducing manual inspections. The technology is already used by major cement producers such as Holcim, Cemex and Heidelberg Materials and is deployed across more than 30 countries worldwide.

Concrete

TotalEnergies and Holcim Launch Floating Solar Plant in Belgium

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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TotalEnergies and Holcim have commissioned a floating solar power plant in Obourg, Belgium, built on a rehabilitated former chalk quarry that has been converted into a lake. The project has a generation capacity of 31 MW and produces around 30 GWh of renewable electricity annually, which will be used to power Holcim’s nearby industrial operations. The project is currently the largest floating solar installation in Europe dedicated entirely to industrial self-consumption. To ensure minimal impact on the surrounding landscape, more than 700 metres of horizontal directional drilling were used to connect the solar installation to the electrical substation. The project reflects ongoing collaboration between the two companies to support industrial decarbonisation through renewable energy solutions and innovative infrastructure development.