A push for extended producer responsibility policies for plastic waste in India will be a boon for plastics recycling, according to companies at Plastindia 2023.
“India will be getting more mature towards plastic recycling, with government policies formalized with the new EPR guidelines, said Nitin Gupta, CEO of Steer Engineering in Bengaluru.
In early 2022, India’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, unveiled guidelines for plastic packaging EPR that stipulates mandatory targets for recycling of plastic packaging waste, reuse of rigid plastic containers and use of recycled content. It sets recycling rate targets of 30-50 percent for various plastic packaging by 2025, along with recycled plastic content requirements of 5-30 percent. The recycling rate target for rigid plastic, starting at 50 percent in 2025, will rise to 80 percent by 2028 under the plan.
The government told the Indian parliament recently that more than 5,000 producers, importers and brand owners have registered on its EPR portal, along with about 1,600 plastic waste processors.
Hiten Bheda, chairman of the Environment Committee at the All India Plastics Manufacturers Association, said large companies have made sizable investments in plastics recycling in recent months but that smaller firms have some competitive disadvantages.
EPR ‘impetus’ for investment
Indian plastics processor and recycler GRP Ltd. said the EPR rules will help the industry enhance product reusability and recyclability. “EPR is providing the required impetus in creating an entire eco-system and by making plastic recycling more organized,” said Executive Director Harsh Gandhi.
The company opened a new recycling unit in Solapur early this year, with 6,000 metric tons of annual capacity for recycled polypropylene granules. India recycles about 90 percent of its PET bottles, and companies in that recycling sector were also making investments.
New Delhi-based recyclables processor Al Mehtab Industries said it’s investing into a new facility to make recycled PET flakes, and currently supplies about 2,000 metric tons a month.
As well, global resin maker LyondellBasell and Shakti Plastic Industries, regarded as India’s largest plastic scrap recycler, signed a joint venture agreement in October to build a fully-automated, mechanical recycling plant in the country. An executive with the joint venture said at Plastindia that the plant will likely start at the end of 2024, and is intended to process rigid packaging post-consumer waste into 50,000 tonnes of recycled polyethylene and PP a year, equivalent to the single-use plastic waste produced by about 12.5 million people. LyondellBasell will market the material under its Circulen Recover product range.
As well, Gujarat-based Umasree Texplast said it opened a joint venture with a Brazilian firm, Packem Textile S/A to make flexible intermediate bulk container bags partly with recycled PET.
