Moving ahead on its commitment towards a cleaner environment, Mother Dairy has recently announced its plan-of-action for collection and recycling of post-consumer plastic waste across the country.

Pioneering alternative options

According to the press statement, Mother Dairy pioneered the automated bulk milk vending machines, popularly known as Token Milk, more than 4 decades ago which offers quality milk through an efficient cold chain, right from manufacturing to the consumer, and free form any form of plastic packaging material. Since inception, this unique system has helped the company and its consumers to prevent the use of plastic and today, it restricts the generation of approximately 900 MT of plastic waste in Delhi and NCR annually.

Mother Dairy operates around 3000 bulk milk vending units installed at its consumer touch-points which includes milk booths, franchise shops, kiosks, mini shops, insulated containers, Kamdhenu mobile units and Container-on-Wheels (COW), thereby offering convenience and plastic-packaging free milk to a larger set of consumers in the region.

Plastic collection and recycling initiative debut

To tackle the burgeoning menace of post-consumer plastic waste, Mother Dairy debuted its plastic waste collection and recycling initiative in Maharashtra in June 2018 by rolling out the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programme. Under this initiative, Mother Dairy, with the help of a Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO), has collected and recycled around 1073 MT of plastic waste till May 2019. This quantity includes around 183 MT of Multi-Layered Packaging (MLP) and 890 MT of Non-Multi-Layered Packaging. Today, the company is implementing 100% EPR in the state of Maharashtra.

Scaling-up the initiative across the country

In FY 2019-20, Mother Dairy has embarked upon the journey to replicate the success of EPR by spearheading the programme on a pan-India basis. As per the release, the company, through leading PROs, will collect and recycle plastic waste across 25 key states of its operations and is targeting to recycle around 60% of the total MLP used, that is approximately 832 MT by March 2020. This recycling effort has already been initiated in 7 regions of Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Bihar.

Commenting on the initiative to address plastic waste, Sangram Chaudhary, managing director at Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetable said, “Consumers opting for our alternative options are leaving a green footprint every day. However, some of the products from our company’s portfolio involves recyclable plastic packaging of both forms – MLP and non-MLP and being a responsible organization, Mother Dairy has acquired central registration for brand owner under Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), which is in line with the Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rule, 2018. With the registration, Mother Dairy is the first amongst dairy co-operatives for acquiring registration under CPCB as well as implementing EPR and is committed for 100% EPR implementation of post-consumer used plastic waste generated in a timeframe of 3 years. Our aim is of on-ground actions for collection, segregation and recycling of plastic waste.”

He further added, “Mother Dairy has entered into a contractual engagement with leading PROs and with their help, we will be able to network with waste picker communities, recyclers and also liaison with urban local bodies for collection and recycling post-consumer plastic waste.”