Maharashtra govt's move to ban use of plastic puts RIL in recycle mode
Company creating platform for building corpus and setting up
full-fledged sustainability team
Companies News:
The
Maharashtra government’s decision in March to partially ban the use of plastic
has put the country’s largest polymer producer in recycle mode. The Mukesh
Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL) is now creating a platform for recycling,
building a corpus and setting up a full-fledged sustainability team.
“The
ban from Maharashtra was more of a wake-up call for the industry,” said Vipul
Shah, chief operating officer of RIL's petrochemicals business. RIL had
homework in place over the last couple of years. The ban accelerated the
process, he added.
“There
was earlier a small team of two to three people working on a smaller project
like bottle recycling. We now have a full-fledged department for sustainability
of seven to eight people working full time and another 10-12 moonlighting,”
Shah added.
RIL
is the country’s largest producer of polymer, the main raw material required
for making plastic items. Shah did not share details on how much of the
company’s polymer production is consumed through plastic bags and other items
banned in the state.
“The
exposure to banned items is minimal, less than three per cent maybe. It is more
likely to affect small enterprises. As for RIL, there are other segments to
cater to,” said a person with direct knowledge of the business.
Part
of the sustainability team’s job is to develop an extended producer
responsibility (EPR) platform for the industry. “Being the largest polymer
producer, we want to design something that is adaptable to India and not a copy
from Europe. We want to design the whole chain from segregation, collection,
secondary segregation, recycling, generating energy and oil,” Shah added.
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