The Alliance to End Plastic Waste identifies million-tonne opportunity in India

The nation, Justin Wood suggested, is not merely a recipient of sustainability efforts but a primary global target for investment, a vast and complex laboratory for scaling solutions that could redraw the map of global plastic management.

The numbers he presented were arresting: India generates 9.4-million tonnes of plastic waste annually, a mountain of material that currently represents a lost economic value of USD 133-billion. In Wood’s estimation, this is not a liability, but an untapped economic asset. A confluence of factors—a rapidly expanding economy, an increasingly environmentally conscious consumer base, and a governmental willingness to fund—makes the country an ideal testing ground for a regenerative plastics future.

The Alliance to End Plastic Waste, an initiative launched in 2019 by 27 companies and now a global network, has committed itself to this endeavour. Its work is structured around large-scale country programs, with a singular focus on achieving system-level change across design, collection, sorting, and recycling. Between 2020 and 2025, their efforts had yielded significant results globally, including the collection and "valorisation"—the act of converting waste into a usable resource—of over 84,000 tonnes of plastic waste.

In 2025, however, the Alliance escalated its commitment to India, launching a dedicated, large-scale country program with a minimum funding pledge of USD 200-million. This effort is rooted in the legislative certainty provided by India's evolving regulatory landscape, particularly the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework and the Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0.

The strategy is precise, focusing on collection and sorting infrastructure, specifically for flexible packaging—a notorious segment that accounts for 40% of the nation's plastic waste but boasts a dismal 5% recycling rate, in sharp contrast to PET’s 80% recovery. By integrating technology for waste sorting and traceability, the Alliance aims to formalise the livelihoods of the nation's 1.5-million informal waste pickers. This transition is envisioned as just one, converting low-value waste into high-quality raw materials and leveraging the growing competency of domestic recyclers to create higher incomes and better job creation. The groundwork is already being laid, with a local Section 8 non-profit organisation set to go live on April 1, 2026.

Despite the promise, Wood was clear-eyed about the operational hurdles. While the legislative backbone is robust, the enforcement remains uneven, with industrial states like Maharashtra and Gujarat setting a pace that others struggle to follow. The most critical bottleneck, however, lies in sorting. The gap in household waste segregation and a severe lack of municipal sorting centres—particularly outside major metropolitan areas in Tier II and III cities—means valuable feedstock is diverted to landfills rather than the recycling stream.

Furthermore, a significant financial gap persists. Wood pointed to a deficit of USD 28–40 per tonne of waste, a cost that current EPR credits are failing to bridge. The conclusion is that the successful transition to a truly circular economy hinges on two major integrated efforts: better financial mechanisms to cover this funding gap and the full integration of the informal waste-picking sector to provide a reliable, formalised supply of material. India, in the estimation of the Alliance, is an opportunity for global circular solutions, but one that requires both the funding and the logistical rigour to unlock its multi-billion-dollar potential.