A Cradle-To-Cradle Approach!

With Increasing Populations, Volatile Market Conditions and Unsustainable Human Interventions, Today the World Is Helplessly Staring at Falling Food Supplies and Unsustainable Economic Models.

- Vipul Babu

In 2016, the Government of India notified plastic packaging manufacturers and users about the new Plastic Waste Management Rules that would mandate use of recyclable, sustainable packaging material, extend the jurisdiction of recycling waste collection to rural areas, promote use of plastic waste in road construction, waste to energy or waste to fuel among other provisions.

This is a welcome move for a country that faces the challenge of handling 10,000 tonnes of plastic waste generated per day – while thermoplastic (inherently recyclable) waste forms 80 percent of this waste, the 20 percent of thermoset plastics, which include metalized and multilayered plastics and essentially all flexible food packaging of today, is the most visible and perceptibly problematic waste that municipal authorities deal with. Littered plastics are not just an eyesore – they practically choke cities, whether caught in drains, burnt or worse still, left unprocessed mixed with biodegradable waste.

While globally, governments and municipal authorities have tried multi-pronged approaches to increase recovery and recycling as well as reduce consumption and littering of flexible plastic waste, in India so far, we have not been able to achieve an optimal level of waste management. As per the CPCB report in 2015, 51.4 million tonnes of solid waste was generated in the country that year, of which 91 per cent was collected, 27 per cent was treated and remaining 73 per cent disposed of at dump sites. We still see a lot of plastic waste that remains littered, spoiling the view of landscape and raising concerns about India’s capability to achieve the objective of ‘Swachch Bharat’ promised by Prime Minister Modi.

While many solutions have been discussed on public forums on plastic waste management so far, I believe the answer for India would lie in the concept of Circular Economy.

Moving from linear to circular