Cracking the Plastics Puzzle | Can India repeat its renewable story?

What would give plastics the lift that renewables enjoyed? India should set a national moon‑shot — say, 90% plastics recaptured by 2035 — with a state‑wise scoreboard

India today wears two contrasting environmental crowns. On one hand we have tripled our renewable-energy capacity to more than 230 GW in less than a decade and are sprinting towards 500 GW by 2030. On the other hand, a 2024 Nature study shows India annually generates about 9 million tonnes of plastic pollution leakage — almost one-fifth of global — making us the world’s largest emitter of plastic pollution, even though other countries generate more plastic waste. 

This dichotomy raises an awkward question. If policy, and innovation could propel renewables to become the juggernaut in the past 15 years, why hasn’t the same machinery been aimed at plastics already clogging our lands, rivers, and even seeping into our bodies? Many studies have found the presence of microplastics in the human body and with concentrations increasing every year.

The renewable surge rests on three reinforcing levers. Directed policy came first. The 2010 National Solar Mission set an audacious 20 GW target (which was increased to 100 GW in 2015) and — crucially — paired it with Renewable Purchase Obligations (RPOs) that compel DISCOMs and large consumers to buy green electricity. 

A decade later, the Green Energy Open Access Rules (2022) slashed the open-access threshold from 1 MW to 100 kW, throwing open the market to thousands of SMEs. Those mandates, combined with accelerated depreciation, GST relief, and a ₹24,000-crore PLI scheme for module manufacturing, told investors that India wanted clean power to win.

Apart from the policy directives, worldwide innovation has played a crucial role. Cell efficiencies climbed from 13 per cent to beyond 23 per cent while module prices collapsed by 90 per cent. Lithium-ion packs fell from $1,100 to under $120 per kWh, making round-the-clock wind-and-solar a commercial reality. Flagship programmes such as PM-KUSUM, which aims to subsidise 34.8 GW of solar power generation on agriculture lands with a promised support of ₹34,422 crore, and PM Surya Ghar, a ₹75,000 crore push to put rooftop PV on one crore homes, are now spreading those technology gains deep into India’s hinterlands.

Plastic mess

Contrast that clarity with plastics. Over the past decade India has rolled out a series of single-use bans — from carry-bag thickness rules in 2011 to the nationwide prohibition of 19 SUP items in 2022 — yet, market surveys still find those very products on the shelves. The Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regime launched by the CPCB in 2022, keeps shifting its targets to 2027-2028, and plastics R&D receives only a fraction of what the MNRE spends on solar innovation. Progress crawls while waste mounts.

What would give plastics the lift that renewables enjoyed? India should set a national moon‑shot — say, 90 per cent plastics recaptured by 2035 — with a state‑wise scoreboard. Reward the circular and tax the linear: offer five-year tax holidays for high post‑consumer‑resin content and levy a modest landfill fee on virgin polymer. Just as imported oil motivated solar, every kilogramme of recycled plastic should be framed as an act of self‑reliance. If newer interventions take time, stricter implementation of guidelines like EPR on polluters, producers, and importers should be implemented.

Solar modules embed polymers in encapsulants and back‑sheets, while turbine blades hide tonnes of thermoset epoxy. What companies must do is have a ‘plastics ledger’, mapping every MC‑4 connector, stretch‑wrap, and retired inverter so nothing slips through when assets reach end‑of‑life. Carbon audits were tedious a decade ago; today they are routine. Plastics should follow the same trajectory.

As a country that worships mother nature, we would be walking the talk if we could turn our major cities into models for other parts. India has already proved it can pivot an industry at warp speed. Let us aim that muscle memory at plastics. Give innovators and entrepreneurs in the sector supportive policy roadmap, clear targets, stable incentives, and serious research funding, and our grandchildren will inherit not just cleaner air but cleaner lands, rivers, and cities.

(Shashank Sharma, Founder, Chairman & CEO, Sunsure Energy.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.