Of late, waste has moved to the centre of the discourse on protecting the environment locally, and dealing with the hazards of climate change globally. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently raised the issue at the World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS) while appealing to world leaders to make LIFE (Lifestyle for Environment) a global movement through a 3P’s – ProPlant People – approach for sustainable development.
He said “reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, re-design and re-manufacture” have been parts of India’s cultural ethos. The country has indeed followed this approach from time immemorial, and the ‘waste to wealth’ route has even got policy support. In fact, India has traditionally regarded ‘waste’ as ‘displaced resources’. This is where the concept of circularity comes in. It looks beyond the end of a product’s lifecycle through continuous processing and reusing of the waste generated at different stages – be it from the use of plastic materials, electronic items, water, agriculture, lithiumion batteries, vehicles, or solar photovoltaic cells/panels and related structures during energy transition.
Roadmap For Circularity
Against this backdrop, RePlanet, a joint initiative between Coca-Cola and The Times of India with Climate Trends as the knowledge partner, will delve into different aspects of circularity across several economic sectors over the course of months, bringing into focus how India has been dealing with its waste at different stages and the kind of policy it might need to fill the gaps towards its ‘waste to wealth’ goal while moving from a linear to a circular economy (CE). The Centre has, meanwhile, initiated a process to make an action plan for a circular economy, and to have an overarching national policy for mainstreaming resource efficiency across all sectors. “Circular Economy Action Plans are being developed for 11 categories of waste by committees constituted by the Niti Aayog,” Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav told TOI.

He said even the 2022-23 Budget is a reflection of the country’s commitments as it announced support for implementation of action plans in important sectors, including electronic waste, end-of-life vehicles, used-oil waste, and toxic and hazardous industrial waste. The Niti Aayog has already constituted 11 committees led by the ministries concerned and comprising domain experts, academics and industry representatives to prepare comprehensive action plans for 11 focus areas, including end-of-life products, recyclable materials and waste that either continue to pose considerable challenges or are emerging as new challenge areas that must be addressed in a holistic manner.
Necessary For Growth
“With only 2% of the world’s landmass and 4% of freshwater resources, a linear economy model of ‘takemake-dispose’ would constrain India’s manufacturing sector and, consequently, the overall economy,” said the Niti Aayog in its note on how the government is driving the transition from a linear to a circular economy. It is, of course, not easy, given the volume of waste generated in India. The gaps between waste generation and processing, and the lack of adequate infrastructure
for efficient use of resources make the road to circularity quite rough. “In India, considering materials as isolated from livelihoods is unrealistic, as a large informal sector is integral to waste flows. Despite recent regulations which require waste to be channelled to the formal sector through licensed operations, this has not happened. In fact, waste processing is often illegally subcontracted to the lower cost informal sector,” said Ravi Agarwal, director, Toxics Link, one of the oldest Delhi-based organisations working in this domain. Agarwal noted that over 95% of electronic and plastic waste is still dealt with by the informal sector of waste-pickers, ‘kabadiwalas’ and small recyclers. “Here resource recovery efficiencies compared to formal operations are low (65% vs 95%) and toxic exposures to workers high. Also, recycled products can contain residual toxics,” he said.

Experts say the objective of circularity can only be achieved by making waste collection and recycling lucrative. “One of the key challenges towards achieving environmental sustainability through the circular economy is to keep plastic waste collection and recycling lucrative. India generates enough waste to meet the demands of local industries which use recycled plastic waste as raw material for their products. Through a network of waste pickers, ‘kabadiwalas’, recyclers, our country is the leader in the collection and recycling of many plastic resins,” said Vinod Shukla, president, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Smriti Manch. The organisation has been working on research and advocacy in the plastic waste domain. He said the new extended producer responsibility (EPR) guidelines on plastic packaging will help in strengthening the collection and recycling ecosystem. The environment ministry has recently set up a ‘market mechanism’ for plastic waste management where an efficient approach can get waste generators credits that can be sold and purchased.

“The circular economy functions on the same principle as the cycle of life – creation, sustenance and destruction. The materials created by humans, such as plastics, do not follow this cycle in their present form. Without the plan for destruction, most of the discarded plastic items are bound to pollute for many centuries,” said Shukla while pitching for a robust policy. He cited packaging waste as an example: “The circularity of packaging can be achieved by making amendments to the material/design of the packaging at the production stage or by introducing processes/catalysts which ensure the end-of-life treatment of post-consumer waste. The problem of single-use packaging pollution grew because a lot of it is not designed to enable the end-of-life destruction or material recovery. ”
As the government is working on an overarching policy to deal with the issue, Agarwal suggested the circular economy needs to be “rethought as an integrated issue of livelihood and materials”, and an opportunity to create inclusive, safe and dignified green jobs. He said, “For just transitions, investments in upskilling, recycling facilities, collection mechanisms based on extended producer responsibility, cleaner materials, etc, are needed. Despite three decades of lip service, we still do not have an implementable plan or mechanism to enable this shift. Instead, courts and regulators periodically attempt to shut them down. ”