Explained: What Mother Dairy’s decision to go plastic waste neutral means

As we step up to World Environment Day, on 5 June, Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetable Pvt Ltd announced its plans of becoming a ‘plastic waste neutral’ company by the financial year 2023-24. The company also said that it has set a target to recycle over 7,000 million tonnes (MT) of post-consumer used plastic waste in the current fiscal. Mother Dairy managing director Manish Bandlish said in an ANI report, “As a responsible organisation, we reaffirm our stand to a safer and cleaner environment for a better tomorrow. “In line with our commitment, we have now set our sight towards being a plastic waste neutral organisation by FY2023-24, while contributing towards making our planet safe for the generations to come.” This is a significant move in the fight against plastic pollution, which has become one of the world’s most pressing environmental issues — the world produces about 400 million tonnes of plastic waste every year. Take a look at what it means to be a ‘plastic waste neutral’ company, the importance of such a decision and other companies to do so. What does it mean to be plastic neutral? Being plastic neutral means that for every amount of plastic created, a measured equivalent of plastic waste is recovered and removed from the environment by an individual or company through recycling/waste management efforts. It is important to note that plastic neutrality is different from ‘plastic-free’; however, it holds an underlying idea to not add up to the plastic waste in existence in the environment. Being plastic neutral helps in reducing the plastic footprint — the amount of plastic a lifestyle demands. According to environmentalists, the process of becoming plastic neutral is quite simple and relatively low cost. How to become a plastic neutral company? The road to becoming a plastic neutral company is relatively easy — some environmentalists state that there’s a four-step approach to it. First off, measure. Environmentalists say that each company must carry a plastic audit to identify plastic products. The next step is reduce. Once you’ve measured your plastic usage you can start to make a plan on how to reduce it. The first step to consider is to transition away from unnecessary single-use plastics used in your business. The third phase in becoming plastic neutral is plastic offsetting, which means companies invest in initiatives that tackle plastic pollution to offset their unavoidable plastic usage. The last and final phase is reuse and recycle. Companies should use products that can be reused or recycled. Also, employees should be educated on the importance of cleaning and separating recyclable items at the workplace. Mother Dairy’s plastic waste Mother Dairy, the leading milk supplier in the Delhi-NCR market, has been conscious of their plastic usage and started its plastic waste collection and recycling initiative in Maharashtra under the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programme in 2019 and scaled the initiative to a national level in the following year. The company, through its associated partners, has already 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 till March 2022. The company is also working towards reducing the consumption of plastic by way of offering alternatives to plastic straws used for the consumption of dairy beverages. [caption id=“attachment_10753871” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Going plastic neutral is the need of the hour as India generates 3.5 million tonnes of plastic waste annually. AFP[/caption] Companies that have gone plastic neutral There aren’t many companies in the country that have already taken this step. However, the practice is slowly catching on. In February, Dabur became India’s first plastic waste-neutral company. Making the announcement, Dabur India operations executive director Shahrukh Khan had said: “It is a matter of great pride for the entire Dabur family, who have worked towards not just collecting plastic waste from our cities, towns and villages, but also preventing the waste from reaching our landfills and oceans.” Following in Dabur’s footsteps, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) giant Procter & Gamble in March said it had become a ‘plastic waste neutral’ company in FY 2021-22, after having recycled 100 per cent of post-consumer plastic packaging waste In a statement, it said that it had collected, processed, and recycled over 19,000 metric tonnes of post-consumer plastic packaging waste from across the country which is more than the amount of plastic packaging in its products sold in a year. In April, ITC was another company that achieved this milestone. The company collected and sustainably managed more than 54,000 tonnes of plastic waste. The amount of plastic waste managed exceeded the amount of plastic packaging utilised by the company during the year. Benefits of being a plastic neutral company Besides the obvious benefit of helping in the fight against plastic pollution and saving the environment, companies that go plastic neutral also benefit in the market. A company going plastic neutral builds up a brand and also lets customers know that they are responsible — a trait that helps in marketing and sales. Companies going plastic neutral is also driven by customers’ desire to buy from sustainable and environment-friendly brands. Over 65 per cent of millennial buyers prefer eco-friendly, plastic-neutral, sustainable, or organic products. With inputs from agencies Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.