Dow enlists India’s Marico and Lucro for South Asian flexible plastics circular economy

17 May 2021 --- Dow is entering into a tripartite partnership with Lucro Plastecycle, an Indian recycling company, and Marico, a leading Indian consumer goods company. The collaboration seeks to reinforce Dow’s 2030 sustainability targets and drive a circular economy for flexible plastics in South Asia. 

The partnership follows an agreement between Lucro and Dow earlier this year to develop polyethylene (PE) film solutions. With the addition of Marico, Dow says the collaboration will form an essential part of its environmental sustainability efforts. 

Speaking to PackagingInsights, Suny Markose, Asia Pacific recycling commercial director for Dow Packaging and Speciality Plastics, says the expansion in India will help move the company toward its goal of enabling one million metric tons (MMT) of plastic to be collected, reused or recycled by 2030. 

“Dow’s partnership with Lucro and Marico in India marks a significant milestone for Dow in India in terms of tackling scrap packaging – one of the country’s highest contributors of plastic waste – which is currently not being recycled as much due to the complexity of the process of recycling them.” 

Driving Indian circularity 
Under Dow and Lucro’s agreement, Dow will utilize its industry-leading team of packaging experts, material scientists, recycling equipment, blown film manufacturing and testing capabilities at Pack Studios Shanghai and Mumbai to help Lucro develop recycled film for various applications, explains Markose. 

Lucro will exclusively use Dow’s linear low-density PE (LLDPE) and low-density PE (LDPE) resins to blend with Lucro’s post-consumer recycled (PCR) resins, creating the PE film structures for Marico to utilize.Lucro will blend its PCR resins with Dow’s LLDPE and LDPE resins to create circular PE film structures for Marico.

“This approach enables brands such as Marico to use PCR resin as part of their product packaging, which could lower carbon emissions when compared to virgin PE resins.” 

Dow will also test the films’ suitability in a variety of other applications, including collation shrink films, which is a form of secondary packaging commonly used for bottles, cans and liquid cartons.

Meanwhile, the company is looking at additional applications like shipping sacks, e-commerce bags and non-food packaging like detergents, explains Markose. 

“It is part of Dow’s comprehensive strategy to enable a circular economy for plastics by focusing on integrating recycled content into product offerings and ensuring that product’s values are maximized and extended across its lifecycle, from creation to use and disposal.”

Cutting emissions
Markose says the venture could have substantial carbon emissions savings. According to the Association of Plastics Recyclers’ data, 1 kg virgin HDPE resin generates around 2 kg of C02 equivalent, while recycled PE generates 0.5 kg of C02 equivalent. 

“So, the switch from virgin PE to recycled PE can enable customers and brand owners to reduce their carbon footprints apart from giving the waste plastics a useful end-of-life,” Markose asserts. 

Markose also highlights a study conducted by Circulate Capital with A*STAR, Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research, which suggests eliminating plastics waste from India could lead to the elimination of 5.1 MMT of C02 equivalent per annum.The partnership will help waste pickers around India, says Dow.

Boosting jobs
Dow also foresees that value creation in the recycling value-chain will create more opportunities in job creation and earnings. 

“We all understand the key role played by the informal waste sector in India and as Dow and Lucro provide more value-added recycled products to leading industry players like Marico,” continues Markose. 

This could, in turn, trickle-down to workers at the bottom of the packaging chain in India, who form an essential part of waste management infrastructure in the country. 

“A part of this value will also go down the value chain right up to the collectors and aggregators, which will incentivize them to collect more waste plastics.”

“Eventually, this will become an economically self-sustaining model in the future as more brands continue adopting recycled solutions into their portfolio.”

Earlier this year, Dow entered a partnership with Mr. Green Africa to tackle plastic waste in Kenya and advance a circular economy for flexible plastics across sub-Saharan Africa. 

By Louis Gore-Langton