The world is facing an environmental crisis, and central to it is the mounting problem of waste, particularly plastic pollution, which strains the planet’s ability to regenerate.
In this context, India is facing its own environmental pressures. The growing economy, rapid urbanisation, and soaring population have spiked the demand for single-use plastics and packaging materials.
As per recent studies, India has emerged as the world’s largest plastic polluter, accounting for nearly 20% of the total global plastic waste and generating around 9.3 million tonnes of waste annually. About 3.5 million tonnes of plastic waste are mismanaged and leak into the environment annually, alongside India’s per capita plastic consumption growing to approximately 11 kg per year, underscoring the urgent need to reduce plastic consumption and efficiently manage various types of plastic across their lifecycle.
India’s PET puzzle
Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), a widely used type of plastic, especially in food and beverage packaging, offers a promising path as one of the most recyclable plastics. With nearly 80% of PET bottles recovered, India has made substantial progress in PET waste collection. However, a majority of this is downcycled into lower-value products and often used in textiles and non-food packaging instead of being recycled back into bottles.
The bottle-to-bottle revolution
Bottle-to-bottle is a closed-loop system, where the bottles are collected, cleaned, converted into food-grade flakes or granules, and remanufactured into bottles.
Unlike downcycling where PET bottles are transformed into lower-value products such as fibre or non-food packaging, the bottle-to-bottle method preserves material integrity, allowing the plastic to be reused at the same grade. By keeping the material within a high-value loop, bottle-to-bottle recycling enables a circular economy, minimising resource extraction, reducing carbon footprint, and extending the life cycle of plastics without compromising quality.
The industrial shift: The changing ecosystem
Multinational soft drink giants like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are integrating recycled PET into their bottles, encouraging sustainability. Investments in advanced recycling infrastructure, strategic partnerships with recyclers, and the integration of traceability systems are also helping the cause.
Moreover, India’s regulatory framework is evolving to support circularity. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has mandated that from April 2025, producers and brand owners must incorporate a minimum of 30% recycled plastic content in rigid plastic packaging like PET bottles. This requirement will increase by 10% annually, reaching 60% by 2028-2029, driving gradual industry-wide change, urging companies to rethink material use from design to disposal.
Another major regulatory breakthrough was announced on May 23, 2025. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) now allows the use of recycled PET (rPET) as a Food Contact Material (FCM), marking a pivotal shift for sustainable food packaging.
The regulation only allows post-consumer, food-grade PET and requires recyclers to use approved decontamination processes such as super-clean, melt-in, paste-in, or chemical recycling. Clear labelling, including an FCM-rPET symbol and percentage of recycled content, is now mandatory. This safeguards consumers and opens new doors for brands, recyclers, and converters, aligning regulatory clarity with environmental responsibility.
However, there exist certain challenges at the grassroots level.
The roadblocks
Most Indian households don’t segregate their waste, making the collection and recycling process challenging. This highlights the need for education, standardisation, and integration across the ecosystem.
Additionally, fragmented coordination within the recycling supply chain hinders consistency and traceability. To overcome these systemic gaps, technologies such as AI-powered sorting systems, blockchain-based traceability, and software solutions that match plastic origin with local recycling capabilities, can offer scalable, data-driven solutions to streamline operations.
But the path forward demands robust collaboration—public-private partnerships, cohesive industry consortia, and grassroots consumer engagement that rewards responsible behaviour. We require an ecosystem where innovation, regulation, and education go hand-in-hand is imperative.
India’s PET Opportunity
Bottle-to-bottle PET recycling is a transformation in mindset and material value, reinforcing the idea that sustainability and scalability aren’t mutually exclusive.
The question is no longer whether this revolution is possible, but how quickly we can align as a nation—across sectors, systems, and citizens—to make it inevitable. So, this World Environment Day, let’s build a plastic-positive future, one bottle at a time.
