In partnership with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and several other NGOs and local municipalities, the company is now planning to double the number of cities for the campaign during 2020.

In the first phase, the campaign helped HCCB collect plastic waste from nine locations across seven cities that included New Delhi, Varanasi, Ghaziabad, Patna, Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad and Kolkata. The second phase will kick off in Goa, Jodhpur, Aurangabad, Mumbai and Chennai.

Umesh Malik, vice president, public affairs and communication, HCCB, said, “All we are trying to communicate is that plastics have inherent value and can be recycled. Our objective is to bring about behavioural change needed to responsibly segregate waste at source as a first step for recycling of plastic waste. The initial response has been quite encouraging and we are hopeful that the increasing awareness will eventually bring about effective and scientific management of plastic waste in our country.”

The Plastic Lao, Thaila Pao campaign is designed as a barter system, in which people are given one recycled cloth bag at its mini material recovery stalls for each set of 10 PET bottles, 10 pieces of mixed plastic products, 20 pieces of multi-layered plastics, (of at least 100 gms and above), 20 small mixed plastic products or 15 pieces of plastic bags (of normal size of 1-2 kg carrying capacity).

In the first phase, the campaign helped HCCB collect plastic waste from nine locations across seven cities

In an effort to raise awareness against the use of single-use plastic and encourage the use of sustainable materials, HCCB had distributed 22,000 cotton bags at its experience centres, which were set up in four of its factories in Ameenpur, Siliguri, Chittoor and Goblej earlier this year.

So far, the FMCG major has collected and recycled more than 30,000MT of plastic waste through its swachhta kendras (material recovery facilities) in 25 cities. It now aims to collect and recycle more than 1,00,000MT of plastic waste as it expands the campaign to 50 cities.

In cities, where HCCB does not have its own swachhata kendras, it partners with NGOs, which not only collect these post-use consumer plastics including the multi-layered plastic wastes, but also recycle them into useful products in an environmentally sustainable manner. The company, along with UNDP and several NGOs and government agencies, aim to gradually establish swachhata kendras under its plastic waste collection programmes from the current level of 25 to 50 cities in the country.

“The beauty of the campaign is that the Plastic Lao, Thaila Pao campaign is part of HCCB’s ongoing effort to create an end-to-end recycling ecosystem starting at the point of waste generation and connecting to the recyclers, thereby creating a circular economy on plastics,” said a company press note shared with WhatPackaging?.