INDIA – Mother Dairy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board India has announced a target of recycling over 7 billion tonnes (MT) of post-consumer used plastic waste in the current fiscal.
The ambitious target is part of the company’s goal to become a ‘plastic waste neutral’ company by the financial year 2023-24.
Mother Dairy began its plastic waste collection and recycling/co-processing initiative in Maharashtra in FY2018-19 under the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program.
It scaled up the initiative on a pan-India level for Multi-Layered Plastic Waste (MLP) in FY2019-20, in line with the Plastic Waste Management (PWM) Rules 2018 as amended.
Mother Dairy said in a statement that it has been closely working with its suppliers and leading Waste Management Agencies (WMA) for the implementation of the National EPR framework.
Through the company’s associated partners, it has collected and co-processed/recycled around 8,164 MT of post-consumer used plastic waste (5,318 MT of Single Layered Plastic Waste and 2,846 MT of Multi-Layered Plastic Waste) from June 2018 to March 2022.
Manish Bandlish, Managing Director, Mother Dairy said “As a responsible organization, we reaffirm our stand to a safer and cleaner environment for a better tomorrow.”
Testament to the fact is our Token Milk (branded loose milk) offering since 1984, which has been helping us to save approximately 7 lakh kg of plastic coming into the environment every year.”
Bandlish added that apart from plastics, the company is also conscious of efficient usage of key natural resources by bringing them under its performance indicators.
Mother Dairy noted that over the years, it has taken varied measures for environmental sustainability and conservation of natural resources through initiatives like water conservation, rainwater harvesting, and the adoption of renewable energy sources.
Additionally, it is also working towards reducing the consumption of plastic by way of offering alternatives to plastic straws used for the consumption of dairy beverages and will soon be available with paper-based straws across its markets of operations.
This offering the company is making on alternatives straw to plastic is after the Indian government introduced a ban on single-use plastic, in August 2021, including plastic straws, in an effort to tame runaway environmental pollution.
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