Reliance to double PET recycling capacity 

According to RIL, this initiative to double its recycling capacity to 5 billion post-consumer PET bottles will ensure India maintains over a 90% recycling rate. The company claims that it is focusing on sustaining India’s post-consumer PET recycling rate, which is currently the highest in the world. 

Vipul Shah, COO - petrochemicals business, RIL, said, "The expansion of PET recycling capacity is part of Mukesh Ambani’s vision to transform our legacy business into sustainable, circular and net-zero carbon materials business and support the entrepreneurs to take risk throughout the value chain.” 

He added, “RIL is committed to the development of the entire value chain and it shares expertise and technical know-how with the entrepreneurs to produce top quality products at the lowest possible costs. It has underwritten the entire production from Srichakra’s facility to provide support for the development of the business.” 

RIL currently recycles PET bottles at its Barabanki, Hoshiarpur and Nagothane plants. The post-consumer PET bottles are used as a raw material for manufacturing recycled polyester fibre. 

The fibres manufactured through this process are branded as Recron GreenGold and the company through its Hub Excellence Partners (selected downstream mills) manufactures R Elan GreenGold fabrics. 

As per the new project, Srichakra Ecotex India will build and operate the new recycled PSF – Recron GreenGold and PET flakes wash-line in Andhra Pradesh for RIL. 

Srinivas Mikkilineni, director - Srichakra Ecotex, said, “The agreement with RIL provides an excellent opportunity for our company to expand its footprint into the recycled polyester staple fibre market. The alliance will propel our commitment to reduce plastic pollution and facilitate both organisations to advance the circular economy for plastic waste in India. RIL’s industry expertise, technical knowledge, and business assurances will allow us to research, innovate and develop high-quality and sustainable products for RIL’s GreenGold portfolio.” 

At present, RIL converts more than 2 billion post-consumer PET bottles into fibres annually. The company claims that the new Srichakra capacity addition will be instrumental in converting about 5 billion used PET bottles into value-added fibres.