30 Years Ago

A LOOK BACK AT JANUARY 1992

THE NEW YEAR started with promise, as it so often does – until it goes pear-shaped. China began opening up to the international market and George Bush and Boris Yeltsin met at Camp David to announce the end of the Cold War. On the flipside, the break-up of Yugoslavia let to massive destruction and widespread fighting – the break-up of Czechoslovakia went rather more peacefully. The first text message (SMS) was sent, which may be good or bad, depending on your view of things.

Meanwhile, the environment was emerging as a major global political issue and giving the world something else to worry about. The World Meteorological Organisation reported an unprecedented level of ozone depletion in the polar regions, something that the world has since then successfully managed to rectify. In May 1992 the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted; the following month the first Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro, which among other things ended up giving us GHS.

Even the pages of HCB had begun to take environmental considerations more seriously, the January 1992 number featuring an article about the perceived problems of recycling used plastics drums. That was becoming more of an issue since, following the very difficult economic conditions experienced around the world in 1991, shippers had been looking to reduce their costs by moving to plastics drums as opposed to metal packagings. But that had made users start to wonder what to do with these drums once they had been used.

As we reported in the January 1992 issue, growing pressure to reduce the amount of discarded waste and to re-use and recycle plastics products were forcing manufacturers to reconsider their involvement in the lifecycle of their drums, which meant forging new relationships with users, disposers and recyclers. That they have done so in the decades since then is testament to the way in which industrial packaging manufacturers – even those working in the dangerous goods sphere – have been willing to invest time and money to establish global networks for the collection, re-use and remanufacture (or recycling, if that is not possible) of their plastics products – not just drums but also the inner bottles of composite IBCs. This was an early example of what we are now spending time searching for: the circular economy.

There were similar pressures growing at the other end of the supply chain, with HCB’s regular overview of the bulk liquids storage sector noting that initiatives to clean up the environment and reduce the potential for future pollution were gaining momentum. That had already led to many terminal operators sectioning off large portions of their investment budgets to meet current and anticipated future regulatory demands. The January 1992 edition reported that, overall, planned investment for the year revolved less around new tank construction than on compliance with environmental legislations.

There were some in the industry that felt they were being unfairly targeted, their position in the supply chain meaning that they were being landed with responsibilities not only under those regulations aimed at fixed facilities but also those dealing with transport operations. Furthermore, after a period of slim margins, many smaller operators reported they were going to find it difficult to find the cash for compliance. The sector was about to face some serious consolidation.