Packaged food company Mondelez India has awarded a grant to Bengaluru-based NGO Hasiru Dala that will pilot a project to recycle multi-layered plastic (MLP) waste to build alternatives to plywood that can have both commercial as well as consumer usages.
MLP packaging is used heavily by the foods industry for packaging chips, biscuits, chocolates, shampoo sachets, and candies etc. MLP packaging has least one layer of plastic along with additional layers in materials such as paper, paper board, metalized layers or aluminium foil.
However, the material is significantly hard to fully recycle. The waste often ends up in drains and on street sides its collection remains largely unorganised.
The Mondelez India pilot is set to commence next month and will initially convert 600 tonnes of MLP waste per annum into WoW boards—that can be used to make furniture and even be applied for construction and building purposes. However, the 600 tonnes of waste represent just 10% of plastic generated by the sale of the company’s products in India.
The project was facilitated by Ubuntoo—a global environment solutions company.
As part of this initiative, MLP waste will be collected by Hasiru Dala’s network of waste collection units and then processed and converted into recyclable material at a special unit set up in Bengaluru, Mondelez said.
The technology solution is provided by waste recycling equipment manufacturer TrashCon.
Globally, the maker of Cadbury chocolates and Oreo cookies has committed to reducing its environmental impact—over 97% of Mondelez India’s packaging is currently designed to be recyclable.
In 2019- 2020 and in 2020-21, the company achieved 100% Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) targets in India, it said in a statement.
This is a PRNewswire Feed; edited by Clean-Future Team