Plastic products have become an integral part of our daily life, encouraging its production to cross 150 million tonnes per year globally. In India, plastics waste is a significant portion of the total municipal solid waste. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) estimates that 56 lakh tonnes of plastic waste is generated in every year. It is estimated that out of 15,342 tons of plastic waste generated daily in India about 60% are collected and recycled., while the remaining fraction ends up in the environment. It is to mention that no authentic estimation is available on total generation of plastic waste in the country however, considering 70% of total plastic consumption is discarded as waste, thus approximately 5.6 million tons per annum (TPA) of plastic waste is generated in country, which is about 15342 tons per day (TPD).

Rural areas consume biodegradable waste more efficiently than urban areas but plastic and electronic waste have emerged as major problems in rural areas. With its inception in 1957, the Indian plastics industry has also shown a significant growth and currently employs about 4 million people. It operates more than 30,000 processing units, of which 85 to 90 per cent are small and medium enterprises. The utilization of plastics ranges from toys to aircrafts, from dolls to hosepipes, from soft drink bottles to refrigerators, from gramophone records to television sets. Packaging represents the single-largest sector of plastics use and accounts for 35 per cent of plastic consumption.

As our world increases its environmental stewardship, consumers are becoming keenly aware of the problem that plastics present.

There is no denying their benefit, but how do we manage persistent plastic waste at the point of production? While it only takes 12 minutes to create a plastic bag, it takes 500 years, or more, for the plastic to completely biodegrade in a landfill. At the very least, that’s over five normal human life spans. The prevalence of plastics in the rural waste mix presents unique and persistent challenges:

Their non-biodegradability threatens permanent effects on the rural ecology; plastics have been shown to severly contaminate land and water bodies

They regularly block drainage channels, both natural channel such as streams and small water bodies and end up clogging drains as well

Burning of plastics generates toxic emissions such as Carbon Monoxide, Chlorine, Hydrochloric Acid, Dioxin, Furans, Amines, Nitrides, Styrene, Benzene, 1, 3-butadiene, CCl4, and Acetaldehyde

Garbage mixed with plastics interferes in waste processing facilities and also cause problems in landfill operations.

On the other hand, plastic waste recycling can provide an opportunity to collect and dispose of plastic waste in the most environmental friendly way and it can be converted into a resource. In most of the situations, plastic waste recycling could also be economically viable, as it generates resources, which are in high demand. Plastic waste recycling also has a great potential for resource conservation and GHG emissions reduction, such as producing diesel fuel from plastic waste. This resource conservation goal is very important for most of the national and local governments, where rapid industrialization and economic development is putting a lot of pressure on natural resources.

Some of the common technologies deployed for plastic recycling and conversion into fuel are following:

Mechanical recycling process:

Mechanical recycling refers to operations that aim to recover plastics waste via mechanical processes (grinding, washing, separating, drying, re-granulating and compounding), thus producing recyclates that can be converted into new plastics products, often substituting virgin plastics. Collection and sorting of PET bottles used for drinks packaging, grinding, washing, separating, drying and processing into polyester fibers, sheets or containers.

Technology for road construction:

Leveraging plastic waste in road construction has been gaining momentum across India as more than 1200 kms of plastic waste mixed roads in rural areas have been laid by DRDA, Tamil Nadu, distributing a min of 40 Kms for each district. which extended to all the districts of Tamil Nadu which costs around 4729.83 lakhs. Some other States are also adopting the similar technology.

Conversion to fuel:

Another popular technology for converting plastics into energy is conversion to fuel. Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP)-Dehradun is capable of converting plastic waste like polyethylene and polypropylene, both together accounting for 60 per cent of plastic waste, can be converted to either gasoline or diesel. M K aromatics limited - has a plant operating at Alathur, Tamil nadu using an environmentally friendly system for processing plastic waste into hydrocarbons /crude oil.

Under newly formulated Plastic Waste Management, 2016 (by MOEF) rural areas have also been brought under the ambit of PWM, 2016 as plastics have reached to rural areas also. Here, responsibility of the rules is given to the Gram Panchayats. This presents a unique opportunity for Swachh Bharat Mission to enable and empower PRIs to innovate and develop solutions for plastic waste management drawing the learnings from urban solutions. Various State Governments are trying to manage the plastic waste through basic principles of Solid Waste Management i.e. 4-R’s: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse & Recycle. MDWS during its consultative workshop being planned on 22nd & 23rd February aims to invite stakeholders from different sections of society to develop a roadmap for managing plastic waste in rural areas. This will involve discussions around the most suitable technology and entrepreneurship models, management and treatment of plastic waste.