MUMBAI (Commodity Online): Even as the plastics consumption is growing at a rapid pace in India, the country is slowly evolving itself as a leading destination for plastics recycling. Considering the carbon footprint and concerns linked to global warming, various corporate and government have come together in the country to evolve a more environment friendly way to use plastics.

The country’s per capita consumption is, although is one of the lowers in the world at around 5 kg per person per year. This comes in contrast to the world average of 26 kg of per capita consumption of plastics. Americans and Western parts of Europe consume the most plastics at per capita consumption of around 90 kg and 65 kg respectively.

The rising scrap in these countries has worried these countries about the swelling annual cleaning-up bills, leaving aside the environmental concerns.

Last year, Britain’s department for the environment, food and rural affairs (DEFRA) had released a survey stating a fall in the country’s overall ‘cleanliness’. The government required £858 million to clean-up graffiti, gum and pet excreta as the main culprits, followed by cigarette butts and fast-food wrappers etc.

A more of an Indian phenomenon, garbage and plastics recycling model could make these clean-up costs turn into a revenue source.

Plastic scrap is one such waste that had been out of sight from the rag pickers in the country. They considered it to be worthless, unlike paper or fast food wrappers.

Ramesh Chauhan, Chairman and Managing Director of one of the leading bottled water company in India, Bisleri International, initiated with pet waste recycling in Mumbai. The PET recycling ecosystem, pioneered by him, collects about 1,200 tonnes of PET waste every day from Mumbai and processes to supply raw plastics to giants like Reliance.

This not only helped rag pickers get an additional employment but also created serious awareness about the plastic recycling in the country.

There are several outcomes of PET recycling, which is useful to make carpets, car parts, fabrics, Fiberfil (for products like pillows and jackets), and also for roads where the recycled plastic is mixed with asphalt, to make sturdy roads.

Asia has been one the largest plastics consumer in the world, accounting for about 30% of the global consumption excluding Japan, which has share of about 6.5%.

Most plastic is used in packaging, which accounted for over 35% of the global consumption. Amongst the individual Plastics Materials, Polyolefin accounted for 53% of the total consumption, followed by PVC 16.5%, PS-8.5%, PET & PU - 5.5%, Styrene copolymers (ABS, SAN, etc) – 3.5% other engineering & high performance & speciality plastics, blends, alloys, thermosetting plastics – 13%, India’s Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET) report said.

Considering the growth of plastics consumption in the country, the models like scrap recycling seems to be promising with respect to saving carbon foot print as well as generating revenue out of the waste.

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