Maharashtra’s plastics industry needs to move beyond compliance-led recycling and take greater responsibility for ensuring that plastic waste is properly segregated and channelled into recycling, Siddhesh Kadam, chairman of the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), said, while addressing the gathering at Plastics Recycling Show India. The trade show, co-located with Bharat Recycling Show, was held in Mumbai from August 31 to September 2. 

Kadam highlighted the gap between the growing demand for recycled plastics and the availability of clean, segregated feedstock, warning that the industry could face increasing difficulties in securing recyclable material as competition for scrap intensifies.

“Getting a clean material is one of the biggest issues because it is not segregated at source,” he said, calling for greater collaboration between manufacturers, recyclers, citizens and government agencies.

His comments come at a time when India's recycling industry is seeking to scale up the use of recycled polymers, while manufacturers continue to contend with the price gap between virgin and recycled plastics. 

From waste problem to raw-material opportunity

Kadam began by recounting a beach-cleaning exercise that he said collected around 180 tonnes of waste in six hours. Discussions with civic authorities subsequently indicated that daily waste collection volumes were also substantial.

The episode, he said, underscored a fundamental contradiction: consumers use products and discard them, while the resulting waste ultimately becomes the industry's potential raw material.

“If you are gaining something out of trash, how will that trash be generated? That is a social responsibility of a manufacturer as well,” he said.

Rather than relying exclusively on penalties, fines and enforcement, Kadam advocated a series of smaller interventions, beginning with segregation at source.

He urged industry stakeholders attending the exhibition to work together to educate consumers about separating waste and disposing of it in the appropriate bins.

Such measures, he argued, would not only address the environmental impact of mismanaged plastics but also strengthen the recycling industry's feedstock supply in the long term.

Kadam contrasted India's situation with developments in Europe, where he said some recycling facilities had faced shutdowns because of a shortage of raw material.

For India, the challenge is increasingly about the quality and availability of recyclable feedstock, rather than simply the absence of waste.

This creates a direct connection between better waste management and the future growth of the recycling industry. Plastics that are lost to open dumping, drains or other poorly managed disposal routes are effectively lost as potential raw material for recyclers.

Kadam also pointed to the continuing price competition between virgin and recycled plastics. With virgin resin remaining relatively competitive, he said regulatory intervention could eventually increase mandatory recycled-content requirements.

However, he challenged manufacturers to consider what they themselves could do to strengthen the recycling ecosystem rather than waiting for government mandates.

“If there is no incentive, there will be no impetus to recycle,” he said, stressing the importance of creating economic value from discarded materials.

Push for simpler, more recyclable packaging

Kadam also called for a shift away from multilayer packaging towards monolayer structures wherever technically feasible.

With multilayer packaging often combining different polymers and materials, recycling can be more complex. Kadam argued that simpler packaging formats could make recovery and recycling easier.

“It is about time we have to move from multilayer to a monolayer,” he said, pointing to ongoing research and development in the packaging sector.

For recyclers, he said, simpler packaging could reduce the complexity involved in identifying and processing different material combinations.

The issue also reflects a broader debate within the packaging industry: how to balance the functional requirements of food and other sensitive products with the need to design packaging that can be effectively collected, sorted and recycled at end of life.

Industry needs to look beyond EPR compliance

Kadam's remarks also touched on the industry's growing focus on traceability and recycled content.

He argued that discussions around recycling targets and recycled-content mandates need to be accompanied by efforts to ensure that the material required to meet those targets is actually available.

India is already moving towards higher levels of mandatory recycling and recycled-content use, he noted, but the system will ultimately depend on whether sufficient material can be recovered from the waste stream.

He called for a closer dialogue between regulators and industry, emphasising that the MPCB remains open to discussions with stakeholders.

Recycling as a new economic opportunity

Kadam positioned recycling not merely as an environmental obligation but as an emerging economic opportunity.

With plastics, batteries, end-of-life vehicles and other material streams increasingly being brought into the circular economy, he said there was significant potential for businesses that could recover value from waste.

Maharashtra, he said, has an opportunity to play a leading role, but the challenge extends beyond Mumbai and the state to India as a whole.