Ramnath Vaidyanathan Writes: Consumers Need to Play Their Part in Fixing Plastic Waste

India generates over 10mn tonne of plastic waste annually. To just contain this amount of waste, we would need to build a landfill nine times the size of the Taj Mahal, every year! It gets worse. This quantity is expected to triple by 2060 with about 40% coming just from packaging.

The Union government, to its credit, has acknowledged this and has created one of the most stringent rules on plastic-waste management—Plastic Waste Management (Amendment)Rules, 2022—in the world, which requires companies to collect or pay to collect and recycle plastic packaging waste equivalent to 100% of the plastic they put out, and also incorporate 10–60% post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic (depending on the category and increasing year-on-year) in their packaging starting 2026.

On the face of it, the rules emphasise recycling and reuse, but indirectly, they also incentivise companies to eliminate problematic plastics from their packaging and explore alternatives to plastic in packaging, be it in material, design or even distribution models.

Showing the Way

At Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL), we have reduced our plastic packaging intensity by over 20% since 2020. It simply means that for every tonne of product we produce, we now use 20% less plastic than we did in 2020. This was one of the internal targets we took that looked beyond compliance, which was led by multiple teams, from manufacturing teams reducing line wastage to R&D and brand teams redesigning packaging to use lesser plastic.

A great example of the above is our Good Knight Gold Flash liquid vaporiser mosquito repellent. We replaced the non-biodegradable imported wick in the product with a locally sourced biodegradable wick which fulfilled the customer’s need at a lower cost and with a lower environmental impact.

After evaluating materials such as glass wool, carbon fibre, natural fibres and low-density materials like wood dust and silicone dust, we narrowed in on a specific grade of plant fibres that have better thickness and tensile strength than others. This innovation reduced our plastic usage by more than 300 tonne a year.

Another great example is Burger King’s pilot with Loop, a reusable packaging start-up. They charged a small deposit fee to their consumers for reusable cups and containers which would be refunded when they deposit the packaging back to any Loop bin, which they can find using the Loop app.

Focus Areas

Aside from efforts like the above, there are two critical areas that still need a lot of investment to solve the issue of plastic waste. First, companies and regulators need to start looking at recyclability targets and not just recycled content targets. To put it simply, you’ll never be able to improve the use of recycled plastic if your input materials aren’t recyclable to start.

Second, we need significant investments in recycling technology to ensure the availability of high-quality recyclates. Mechanical recycling, in particular, has limitations when it comes to weakening polymer properties after multiple cycles of recycling. Chemical recycling is gaining popularity but is energy intensive and costly in terms of infrastructure required.

Aside from this, there is the issue of traceability of plastics along the value chain. The ultimate goal is to create a seamless and transparent linkage from users segregating plastic waste when disposing the product after use, the plastic waste then being collected and sent to processing, and finally the same plastic waste making its way back to packaging.

This is crucial as once plastic waste drops out of the value chain, it simply ends up in a landfill. This is where digital technologies and product passports can play a crucial role.

Indian businesses can also collaborate with local governments and help support establishment of collection and recycling facilities. In turn, local authorities can educate and enforce regulations requiring households to segregate waste and even charge collection fees that ensure financial sustainability of the recycling ecosystem.

Setting an Example

An inspiring example is Hong Kong’s innovative concept of eco parks, a variation of what used to be called an eco-industrial parks. Basically, these are dedicated areas for waste recycling, where a number of recycling firms co-exist to recycle all possible types of waste including plastic waste.

At Godrej Industries Group, we have been running integrated solid-waste management projects since 2016 working with 15 municipalities across India in a public-private-people partnership model. We have been able to successfully divert over 60,000 tonne of solid waste away from landfills of which close to 3,000 tonne is plastic waste. However, this is merely a drop in the ocean, and we need to do much more.

Plastic waste affects everyone. It is a tricky issue, with multiple interdependent and complex factors. As consumers, each one of us has contributed to these mountains of waste, so we all need to play our part in fixing it.

The writer is associate vice-president–good & green, Godrej Industries Group