Big colas join hands to recycle waste

New Delhi: Amid growing apprehension within the plastic as well as FMCG industries, as  to whether the Centre might completely ban use of single use plastic material on October 2, 2019, several leading consumer product companies like Coca Cola India, PepsiCo India and Bisleri have decided to come together to establish a joint venture for recycling used packaging material.

The industry body, Pack-aging Association for Clean Environment (PACE), said that though they have been working towards the initiative for the past one year, they acknowledged that the urgency to expedite the process came after the Prime Minister urged upon the people on Independence Day, not to use single-use plastic and instead, carry jute or cloth bags with them.

During his August 15 address, Mr Narendra Modi had called upon people to pledge that they would give up single-use plastic by October 2, 2019, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi.

“There is indeed pressure from the government on this issue,” the representative a key packaging body said.

Well aware that the government is serious about implementing the call given by the Prime Minister, the industry players, who earlier this month had gathered under the aegis of PACE, emphatically reiterated that plastic cannot be banned completely. “It is a multi-crore-rupee industry and thousands of people’s livelihood is connected with it — right from the top to the bottom end of the supply chain. Therefore, it cannot be banned completely. Rather, we can reduce plastic pollution by thinking of novel ways to recycle packaging material in an eco-friendly manner,” industry players unanimously said while launching the initiative under aegis of PACE.

Under this initiative, PACE has launched an initiative titled Karo Sambhav which will focus on setting up of infrastructure for collecting and recycling of used packaging material, with the aim that no recyclable packaging material reaches landfills by 2025. They said that under the initiative, collection systems would be set up across the country, which, with the help of the industry stakeholders, would work towards achieving the target.

Industry sources said that the existing recycling initiatives will be converged with the new set-ups for meeting the goal.

While the government on its part has not officially said anything regarding completely banning single-use plastic, there was apprehension within the industry that if anything to that effect was annou-nced on October 2, then it could have been disastrous for the entire value supply chain.