Plastic Reboot

Project Overview

India is the third-largest plastic consumer globally. Its plastic industry is characterized by a vast network of micro, small, and medium enterprises whose growth is fuelled by economic expansion, a burgeoning population, and increasing demand from the consumer packaging sector – particularly Food and Beverage (F&B) - where plastic remains the preferred material due to its low cost, versatility, and lightweight performance. As a result, today India is the world's top plastic polluter, releasing 9.3 million tons of plastic annually.

Plastic Reboot’s India Project aims to operationalize and implement circular economy solutions to minimize plastic waste and reduce plastic pollution from F&B packaging in India. Interventions intend to reduce plastic pollution by piloting packaging redesign innovations in seven industrial clusters and pioneering extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes for packaging through promoting reuse/refill-return solutions in two cities, providing methods to replicate the program across the country and beyond. Relevant policies will be strengthened while behavior and social change are boosted. Through the program’s global child project, India will exchange insights with other child project countries to replicate the project’s success.

Global Environmental Benefits

This program will result in multiple global environment benefits: 19,995 metric tons of avoided residual plastic waste, in turn resulting in 2.24 gTEQ persistent organic pollutants (POPs) to air reduced, and 84,469 metric tons of CO2e reduced, with over 99,010 direct beneficiaries reached.