‘Alternatives to plastics come at higher environmental costs’

Hyderabad: Alternative materials to plastics come at higher environmental costs, said Rajesh Gauba Senior Vice President, Reliance Industries Ltd while speaking on ‘Mission Impossible’ at a day-long technical seminar on ‘Plastic Packaging Sustainability’ organised on Saturday at Hitex Conference in conjunction with the ongoing four-day HIPLEX 2023, India's third largest exhibition on plastics.

“Many studies indicated that the alternatives are not that cheap. That is because plastics are processed at lower temperatures than other alternatives being explored. Plastics are indispensable. There is a bit of plastic everywhere. Plastics actually save lives in the form of medical equipment. Plastics are relied upon to create syringes, surgical gloves, inulin pens, catheters, IV tubes and other medical components.”

“The easy availability of plastic helps to eliminate the need to reuse and sterilise a device. This helps to control the spread of diseases. It hurts when people say that plastics kill. The problem is not with plastics. The actual problem is the waste management of the problem. The plastic industry needs to act and correct the perception that plastic is harmful to the environment,” Rajesh said.

“Society should have a balanced view of plastics. Plastics are indispensable for their properties and lower carbon footprint. Circularity is a new mantra. The industry must educate the masses about the same that plastics actually save lives. The industry must correct this perception because this will drive the policy.”

The Indian recycling rates are the best in the world, he said. The recycling content demand is expected to reach 5.8 million MT in the year 2030. The plastics processing capacity will rise four times in the next 20 years. Without plastics, the world will not survive.

Waste to Road (W2R): Reliance has developed an innovative product for hard-to-recycle end-of-life plastics called ReRoute, which is used in preparing roads. Reliance has collaborated with India's CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (CSIR-NCL) to recycle COVID-19 PPE waste. RIL prepared 52 km of in-house roads at its sites, he informed.

Experts in the industry said that Reliance is coming up with a new road project to tackle plastic pollution. It is also informed that RIL converted over 2 billion waste PET bottles into fabric. The company also recycled plastic wastes into items like spectacles, park benches and fishnets. There is a need for a global approach to address the challenge through the ILBI (International Legally Binding Instrument - UN Convention on the Law of the Sea).

Many speakers who spoke said that India generates around 3.4 million MT of plastic waste and 30 percent of it is recycled. There is a lot of scope for recycling in India.

Ashish Saxena, Joint President of Packaging Films, UFLEX Group speaking on their approach to making Plastic Packaging Sustainable said they were the first company to recycle mixed plastic waste 20 years ago. Beginning his talk, he said that a rag picker has to walk 3000 steps and bend 400 times to collect 1 kg of Plastic.