<aside> 💕 Project Neela Sapana (नीले सपना): In Hindi, नीले सपना means ‘blue dream’. Over the last few decades, the pristine coastlines of Chennai have been devastated by rampant plastic pollution, affecting wildlife and contaminating waterways. This Impact Project is our effort to stop ocean-bound plastic waste from leaking into Chennai's coasts, thereby protecting the Bay of Bengal.
</aside>
<aside> <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/0dd1ba1f-0b35-4dd2-90b2-9974ad3c8d87/2.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/0dd1ba1f-0b35-4dd2-90b2-9974ad3c8d87/2.png" width="40px" /> Project Type: Co-processing of MLP
</aside>
<aside> 📍 Location: Chennai, India
</aside>
<aside> ☘️ # of waste workers: 10+
</aside>
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chennai,+Tamil+Nadu,+India/@13.1093929,80.0261755,10.55z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x3a5265ea4f7d3361:0x6e61a70b6863d433!8m2!3d13.0826802!4d80.2707184
<aside> <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/dc9f0093-5576-4b17-ab67-db220342fcd8/Untitled_design_(11).png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/dc9f0093-5576-4b17-ab67-db220342fcd8/Untitled_design_(11).png" width="40px" /> Without your help, the plastic waste that we recover through this project would have ended up in oceans.
</aside>
More than 50% of the plastic waste generated in urban cities of India is multi-layered plastic (MLP) that does not get collected because the material has no commercial value and lacks collection infrastructure. This includes soft, flexible types of packaging such as candy wrappers and chips packets. The most at risk are those that have multiple layers of plastic along with a metal coating inside since it is almost impossible to separate the materials out in order to recycle them.
Often, in urban centres, harder types of plastic like PET that are easier to recycle, have a recovery rate of over 60-70% because of their inherent economic value. However, low-value materials like MLP have a recovery rate of less than 5%, and are most likely to leak into the natural environment and pollute our waterways.
Project Neela Sapana (नीले सपना), in this first-of-its-kind project, entails the recovery and processing of low-value, single-use plastic waste such as multi-laminate plastic (MLP) to stem its flow into our natural ecosystem. The lack of recycling value means that MLP is either dumped into nature or openly flared, leading to carbon emissions and contamination of our environment.
Instead, we are partnering with local waste management pioneer Waste Ventures India, to create a new model of waste collection. This project directly catalyzes the ethical collection and permanent disposal of hazardous MLP waste. rePurpose Global has funded the set-up of a Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in Gerugambakkam, Chennai for this purpose.
Following the collection of MLP, waste workers segregate, clean, and transport the plastic to cement kilns for co-processing. As this type of plastic cannot be recycled, the best environmental option as prescribed by the United Nations Basel Convention is co-processing. Energy is recovered from the plastic and the remaining waste is effectively disposed of without harmful emissions. We are also able to extract some of the minerals in the plastic waste and use them in the creation of cement. Not only does this initiative dispose of unrecyclable plastic waste without sending them to landfills or river dumpsites, but it also reduces the usage of coal in the cement manufacturing process, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
For every piece of plastic that rePurpose Global gives you credit for, it is a piece of plastic that would otherwise not have been removed from our ecosystems.
A 100% of the plastic recovered on your behalf is "Ocean-Bound". What this means is that this project focuses on the collection of plastic waste in a 100km radius from the coastline (as defined in the Verra Plastic Standards) that would otherwise have not been collected and would most likely end up in oceans. Essentially, it is an intervention to divert this plastic safely away from the oceans before it ever has a chance to leak into them.
.png){kind=link}