PepsiCo India today announced the milestone of achieving 100% PET collection and recycling for the State of Maharashtra as part of its Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program. They set up 100 collection points across 36 districts of Maharashtra for the effective recycling of used PET bottles while PepsiCo India worked with GEM Enviro Management, a waste management company. The program worked on strengthening the existing informal collection network involving more than 10,000 waste-pickers and ensuring higher income by incentivizing collection efforts.
PepsiCo India and GEM Enviro in presence of senior officials from Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), today organized ‘Nagpur Cleanathon’ at Ambazari lake garden to celebrate this achievement. The cleaning drive is part of an effort to continue the momentum of encouraging all stakeholders to collectively come forward and work towards responsible management of post-consumer plastic waste. Additionally, the drive also witnessed an overwhelming response from 100 volunteers, college students and professors and Mrs Nanda Jichkar, Mayor of Nagpur city, Mr Ram Joshi, Hon’ble Additional Municipal Commissioner, Nagpur Municipal corporation; Hema Deshpande, SRO, Maharashtra Pollution Control Board; Sachin Sharma, Director, GEM Enviro and Juhi Gupta, Head Sustainability, PepsiCo India participated in the ‘Nagpur Cleanathon’ cleaning drive. “So glad to witness such a great response at Nagpur Cleanathon. From electric vehicles to recycling plants, the city of Nagpur is proactively working towards making it clean and green. She further urged all the students to become plastic brand ambassadors and spread the message of reducing, recycling and reinventing plastic wherever they go.” Mrs Nanda Jichkar, Mayor of Nagpur city, said at the occasion.
“At PepsiCo India, we have been taking a proactive approach to address the issue of plastic waste, and as part of our Winning with Purpose vision, we’re striving to help build a world where plastics need never become waste. As part of the same vision, we have been actively working across multiple states to collect, segregate, & sustainably manage the equivalent of 100 per cent of our plastic packaging by 2021. Maharashtra is the second city after Delhi to achieve 100% PET Recycling target and we are thankful to our implementation partner GEM Enviro for leading this initiative on-ground. We also want to thank the Maharashtra State Government for supporting this special initiative.” said Juhi Gupta, Head Sustainability, PepsiCo India, Commenting on the occasion. She also added “The Cleanathon is aligned with Govt of India’s ‘Swachhta Hi Sewa’ campaign, that focusses on plastic waste management in the country through nationwide Shramdaan on October 2, 2019. We are encouraged by the kind of response received from college students to clean the Ambazari lake garden. Such collection drives will go a long way towards creating mass awareness on plastic waste management and making Nagpur cleaner and greener.”
