Discussing role of circular economy in recycling plastic packaging

The All India Institute of Local Self-Government (AIILSG), in collaboration with United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD), 3R Waste Foundation, and Urban Update, organised the 32nd edition of ‘E-Dialogues’ on the topic “Recycling Beverage Cartons and Plastic Packaging in Circular Economy” on June 6, 2022. This event is a pre-event of the UNCRD’s Regional 3R & Circular Economy Forum 2022

The illustrious panel for the event included CRC Mohanty, Environment Programme Coordinator, United Nations Centre for Regional Development; Sadhan K Ghosh, President, International Society of Waste Management, Air and Water; Gyan Prakash Misra, Senior Advisor (Waste Management), Mosaic Advanced Solutions; Paramita Datta Dey, Head, Waste Unit, National Institute of Urban Affairs; Sanjiv Kumar, Head, Re Sustainability; S N Umakanth, Chief Manager (WOW Programme), ITC. Dr Kulwant Singh, CEO, 3R Waste Foundation moderated the session.
Dr Kulwant Singh, briefly introduced the title and theme of the webinar, how recycling of beverage cartons plays a key role in circular economy and how (Forest Stewardship Council) FSC-certified sourcing reduces footprint and how these actions contribute to sustainable development goal 12. He further highlighted Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi’s initiative ‘lifestyle for the environment life movement’, launched during COP 26, Glasgow. The initiative aims to promote a lifestyle that is in line with our environment. He further stressed the importance of 3Rs.
Today, beverage cartons are recycled in many parts of India however there are some crucial challenges in the collection, transportation and recycling of used beverage cartons. In India, 50 per cent of the total generated plastic waste consists of single-use plastic only and unfortunately 90 per cent of this single-use plastic waste goes directly to landfill sites.
Mohanty, in his address, stressed the importance of one Earth approach. He further added, “Today, the world is facing a triple planetary emergency consisting of climate change, habitat loss and pollution. Climate change has been the root cause of many of the environmental disasters, while due to habitat loss we are losing our biodiversity, and pollution of land, water, air and ocean has become a threat for human lives.”
He said the recyclability of beverage cartons depend upon effective collection and sorting, an essential pre-condition. Many countries are making efforts to utilise the generated plastic waste in their own unique methods, India is utilising plastic waste in road construction, Norway is using it in the construction of buildings, and Australia is using it for railway line crossbars. He added, “To deal with the problem of waste generation, we must at first decouple waste from our ecosystem. We should prevent waste from making its way into our rivers and other natural resources. To deal with this we must have to reduce waste accumulation through a triangular approach involving governments, research organisations and private players.”
Sadhan K Ghosh was the next panellist. He spoke on the theme “Circular Economy Applied to the Packaging Industry”. He mentioned that single-use plastic has emerged as the biggest threat to the world. The primary problem with single-use plastic is its high littering potential and if the usage and littering of plastic packaging is not reduced, at least 50 kg per metre of shoreline will enter our ocean from where it makes its way to human food chain through bioaccumulation and end up in the body of humans.
In his address, he also highlighted the benefits of recycling packaging materials: (i) reducing the extraction of natural resources, (ii) reducing plastic pollution in the environment, (iii) creating new economic opportunities, (iv) reducing GHG emissions, (v) job creation, and (vi) incentivising innovation in new technologies. He also described how authorities deal with plastic waste. He showed that some of this waste directly goes to landfill sites while some of it goes to incineration plants and a small portion of it is recycled. Today, plastic waste is also used as a source of energy in cement plants and boilers, where it is used as a fuel. Gyan Prakash Misra then addressed the audience. He first highlighted difference between the linear and circular economy along with highlighting the ill effects of linear economy on our environment. He also described how the government came up with the idea of extended producer responsibility and provided a short introduction of EPR and how the principle of EPR is applied to the industry in 2022.
He grouped packaging material in three types, Type-1 consist of packaging of single units of products like a bottle, in Type-2, a certain number of units of a product is kept, while Type-3 packaging is used for transportation purpose. This categorisation also helps in the sorting of these packaging waste from which recyclable materials are extracted for further use. When the material could not be reused any further, it would go to incineration plants or broken down to be used as nutrients for the soil. He later showed a short video explaining how the beverage cartons can be recycled sustainably and their usage to make other durable products such as plywood panels.
Paramita Datta Dey spoke on the theme of sustainable packaging. It means reducing the overall waste and volume of packaging, without impacting the quality of the product. Thus, reducing the ecological footprint of the product. She grouped packaging into three categories, recyclable packaging, reusable packaging and reduced packaging. Today, many non-governmental organisations (NGO) are working in the field of upcycling of recycled waste materials. Sustainability audits of packaging should be done by the producer units, or wherever possible they should use alternative solutions of plastic packaging. She also highlighted some of the possible solution which could be used as an alternative to plastic packaging that is bioplastics, corrugated cardboard, air pillow made from recycled material, mushroom packaging, seaweed packaging, organic fabric, bagasse, stone paper and palm leaf. Sanjiv Kumar later presented in the webinar that how recycling is done around the world and in India, and how re-sustainability is applying the principle of recyclability. He said that the company collects waste from every household then it is transported to the Material Recovery Facility where plastic, paper, metal and wood are separated and used as raw material to make plastic granules, recycled paper, recovery metal and recycled wood. A similar process is followed to deal with e-waste and India is going to have third largest e-waste recycling facility in Hyderabad after Belgium and China.
S N Umakanth stressed on the source segregation and how the organisation is trying to inculcate the segregation practice among the inhabitants. In an initiative called WOW, they teach the households to segregate their waste into three categories, wet, dry waste, and hazardous waste. They demonstrate how the waste can be segregated at home with the help of Community Resource Persons whom they call ‘Swachh doots’ and also educate school children to promote waste segregation at home. The dry waste could be sold to the local kabbadiwalas and used in other processes. He also said that India imports 6 million tonnes of waste paper for which it pays nearly 2 billion, even though we produce a huge amount of dry paper waste, which could not be used due to lack of segregation since it is difficult to process mixed or unsegregated waste.

There are some crucial challenges in the collection, transportation and recycling of used beverage cartons.In India, 50 per cent of the total generated plastic waste consists of single-use plastic only and unfortunately 90 per cent of this single-use plastic waste goes directly to
landfill sites