Thirty-one brands join forces to form Karo Sambhav

The venture aims to tackle plastic waste in the country through an efficient value chain for the collection of post-consumer packaging and optimising material recycling processes. Together, the participating companies will mobilise and converge assets, resources, and an investment of Rs 1,000 crores.

Vimal Kedia, president, Packaging Association for Clean Environment (PACE) said, “This unique venture will focus on closing the material loops for multiple types of packaging materials and shall bring together 60% of the plastics value chain in India. It will bring convergence to multiple solutions being put by producers individually.”

This initiative was developed by PACE for over a year with the objective of developing a transformative system, which enables inclusion, ethics, transparency, good governance and traceability of waste. Action Alliance for Recycling Beverage Cartons is also supporting the venture.

Some of the other companies that have committed to joining hands with this venture include Diageo, Parle Agro, Cavin Kare, Manjushree, Reliance Industries, SC Johnson, IVL-Dhunseri, Pearl Drinks, Varun Beverages, and Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages.

T Krishnakumar, president, Coca-Cola India and Southwest Asia, said, “Through our vision, World Without Waste, we want to ensure that all our packaging material goes for recycling and not to landfills. This is a journey that we must undertake with our peers in the industry to make it more tangible, rigorous and scalable. We’re happy to partake in the launch and subsequent operations of the new producer-led venture.”

The venture plans to have a network of 125 material recovery facilities across the country, which will work with 2,500 aggregators over the next three years.

Ahmed ElSheikh, president, PepsiCo India, said, “At PepsiCo, we have been striving to build a world where plastic never becomes waste. Today’s launch of Karo Sambhav is a landmark step by the industry to pool resources and bring much-needed scale and efficiency to the plastic waste collection and recycling ecosystem. We believe this venture will bring the industry together to collectively commit and provide support in realising the Government’s vision of sustainable plastic waste management in the country.”

According to Pranshu Singhal, who is leading the set-up of this new venture, the focus of this venture would be on developing an India-wide ecosystem for plastic waste management by creating win-win partnerships with stakeholders and applying technology to bring transparency, traceability and scale.

Angelo George, CEO, Bisleri, said, “We are happy to be a part of this landmark venture where we are co-creating solutions for a sustainable future. This will enable the set-up of state-of-the-art sorting and recycling facilities across the country.”

The venture is in alignment with the Government’s Swachh Bharat Mission and a zero-waste movement, which enables the utilisation of secondary materials post recycling.