PepsiCo India achieves 100% PET recycling in Maharashtra

The programme engaged 10,000 waste pickers ensuring higher incomes by incentivising collection efforts.

PepsiCo India and GEM Enviro commemorated the milestone by organising Nagpur Cleanathon at Ambazari Lake Garden, in presence of senior officials from Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC). The drive was part of an effort to encourage all stakeholders to collectively come forward and work towards responsible management of post-consumer plastic waste.

Nanda Jichkar, mayor of Nagpur city, said, "Glad to witness such a great response at Nagpur Cleanathon. From electric vehicles to recycling plants, Nagpur is proactively working towards making it clean and green.” She further urged all the students to become “plastic brand ambassadors” and spread the message of reducing, recycling and reinventing plastic wherever they go.

Juhi Gupta, head sustainability, PepsiCo India, said, “At PepsiCo India, we have been taking a proactive approach to address the issue of plastic waste, and as part of our Winning with Purpose vision, we’re striving to help build a world where plastics need never become waste. As part of the same vision, we have been actively working across multiple states to collect, segregate, and sustainably manage equivalent of 100% of our plastic packaging by 2021. Maharashtra is the second state after Delhi to achieve 100% PET recycling target and we are thankful to GEM Enviro for leading this initiative on-ground. We also want to thank the Maharashtra State Government for supporting this special initiative.”

The drive also witnessed an overwhelming response from 100 volunteers, college students, and professors. It also included Nukkad Natak (street theatre) performances, poster competition, art exhibition, and recycling kiosk to showcase the items made of recycled PET.

“The Cleanathon is aligned with Government of India’s Swachhta Hi Sewa campaign, which focuses on plastic waste management in the country through nationwide Shramdaan on 2 October 2019. We are encouraged by the kind of response received from college students to clean the Ambazari Lake Garden. Such collection drives will go a long way towards creating mass awareness on plastic waste management and making Nagpur cleaner and greener,” Juhi added

In 2018-19, under EPR programme, GEM Enviro on behalf of PepsiCo India collected 6,500 metric tonnes of post-consumer PET.  The collected PET was 100% recycled ensuring zero per cent landfill. (These numbers are based on the EPR certificates issued by GEM Enviro, which have been submitted by PepsiCo with the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board).

Sachin Sharma, director, GEM Enviro, said, “Our partnership with PepsiCo has been highly productive. We have been working together for the last year to enable greater recycling of used PET packaging in the city. We have established collection centres across all districts of Maharashtra to collect PET plastic waste and recycle the same into utilitarian products.”