India ‘getting more mature' in plastics recycling

New Delhi — 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. "Recycling will get the required push. Plastic recycling has to grow. Otherwise, how many more landfills are to be created."

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.

"The new EPR program favors large companies and is biased towards micro, small and medium plastic packaging producers as it is difficult for them in adhering to compliance," he said.

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.

"We are investing about INR 100 crore [$12.2 million] into a new 3,000 metric ton per month capacity site in Uttar Pradesh, which would likely to operational by mid-2023," said Gurmukh Sambhi, chief operating officer.

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.

The show featured many exhibits of machinery aimed at recycling plastic waste or displaying products made from the reclaimed materials, like a line of clothing made from recycled PET bottles from Tamil Nadu-based Shree Renga Polymers.

The company said it recycles 1.5 million PET bottles a day collected from alongside roads and rivers and businesses like shopping malls.

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.

The show also had a recycling start-up pavilion, where companies were displaying furniture, decorative items and other products made from recyclable plastic.

S.B. Dangayach, the co-chairman of the pavilion, said it showed the need for different parts of the plastics supply chain to work together.

"The most challenging aspect of the plastic waste management is logistics," he said. "The cost of collecting waste and transferring it to the processing unit is very high. If all the stakeholders come together to minimize the logistics cost, it can be a profitable business. With the correct mix of policy and participation of all the stakeholders, including the government bodies, this could be very much a possibility."