Dabur has rolled out a mega plastic-waste recycling initiative in Tamil Nadu. The FMCG major believes that a strong environment strategy will not only enhance brand reputation, but will play a key role in building customer loyalty as well.

The company, while helping collect plastic waste, has also been working towards spreading awareness and involving the community in this drive.

Waste collection

Dabur started the plastic waste collection, recycling/ reuse processing drive in the State in 2018-19 fiscal to meet the Plastic Waste Management Rule 2016, 2018.

In the first year of this initiative, Dabur collected 1.1 lakh kg of different types of plastic waste with the help of around 100 rag pickers in places such as Pollachi, Puliangudi, Ramayanpatti, Tirunelveli, Nagercoil and Kanyakumari. The company has decided to expand the initiative this fiscal with a targeted collection of 3.18 lakh kg of post-consumer plastic waste from major cities across the State.

Mega drive

“We will be engaging over 500 rag pickers for this mega collection and processing drive,” said Priyank Arya, Corporate Head – Environment, Health and Safety, Dabur India.

“This is part of our commitment to collect back 100 per cent of the plastic waste generated by Dabur's packaging in Tamil Nadu. The volume of waste collection is estimated at 5.2 lakh kg by 2020-21.”

Arya said the company sends the collected plastic waste to different recyclers, waste-to-energy plants and cement kilns through registered PROs and NGOs.

“We are committed to implementing the Plastic Waste Management Rule 2016, which requires brand owners/producers to work out modalities to create an effective waste collection system for collecting back the waste generated by their products, based on Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) principle,” Arya explained.

Collection centres

Dabur has set up dry waste collection centres at Ramayanpatti in Tirunelveli, Puliangudi, Nagercoil, Pollachi and Coimbatore.

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