'Plastic recycling is very much an at-scale business'

Harsh Mariwala, Marico chairman and Masood Mallick, managing director and CEO of Re Sustainability, share with Sudipto Dey their experience of setting up a joint recycling venture.

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How did Marico—and you—come to take such a deep interest in plastic recycling? Not many Indian corporates have done so.

Harsh Mariwala: One of the reasons for [the brand] Parachute’s success in the market was how we shifted the market from tin to plastics. However, I am always asked about the harm that plastic is causing to the environment. That question kept bugging me.

Somewhere down the line, Marico Innovation Foundation (MIF) came up with a proposal for a research project on innovators in plastic recycling. We identified 15 innovators and released a report two to three years back. We then decided to help these companies scale up and accelerate their growth.

However, that was not creating the big impact that we wanted. One needed a holistic viewpoint to tackle the problem that plastic causes to the environment.

Our team at MIF identified Re Sustainability as an expert in the recycling space. We entered into an agreement and are now putting in place a recycling plant at Hyderabad. Once the prototype is successful commercially, the plan is to scale up this model in other parts of the country. For that we hope to rope in other corporates.