Employees of Reliance Industries come forth to recycle plastic bottles
With a view to reduce plastic pollution, Reliance Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Reliance Industries Limited, has collected more than 78 tonnes of discarded plastic bottles for recycling.
Towards mitigating the health and environmental hazards associated with plastic pollution, Reliance Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), has seen some success with its recently launched initiative.
As part of the foundation’s Recycle4Life campaign, more than 78 tonnes of discarded plastic amounting to 39 lakh bottles have been collected for recycling.
The record-setting drive was made possible by mobilising over three lakh employees, their families, and partners of RIL including allied businesses like Jio and Reliance Retail. All these stakeholders were encouraged to collect waste plastic bottles from their surroundings and deposit them in their offices.
The Recycle4Life initiative was rolled out in October 2019 by the Indian behemoth’s foundation, with the intent of spreading the message of recycling for a cleaner and greener Earth.
“We at Reliance Foundation believe that caring for the environment is of utmost importance. So, building on the foundation’s ongoing efforts to promote, practice, and spread the message of Swachhata hi Seva, we launched the Recycle4Life campaign to raise awareness about the significance of recycling. Thousands of Reliance employees and their families across the length and breadth of India volunteered to be a part of this and helped us to collect and recycle plastic waste,” said Nita M Ambani, Founder and Chairperson, Reliance Foundation.
The foundation is planning to recycle all the waste plastic bottles collected into value-added fibres at one of RIL’s recycling units.
For over two decades now, RIL has been recycling used PET bottles as a part of its sustainable business practice.
In a classic example of sustainability and circularity to address the creation of PET resin for making bottles, the organisation collects discarded PET bottles and converts them into eco-friendly polyester fibres (Recron® Green Gold). This is later used by the downstream textile value chain to make sleep products and fashion apparel (R|Elan™ fabric). Both Recron and R|Elan are churned out using green technologies and trademarked by RIL.
This is not the first time that the Reliance Foundation has delved into the sustainable development space. It has been supporting many clean-up activities involving its employees in the local community over the last one year, from Mumbai’s Mithi River to Versova beach.
To commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the foundation organised a cleanliness drive with the assistance of Jio teams in over 800 railway stations. Many doctors and nurses from the Reliance Foundation Hospital have also been undertaking community awareness activities in their local neighbourhoods.
Engaging with the rural community in several villages to support cleaning and recycling activities comprise another on-going initiative of the philanthropic arm of RIL.
(Edited by Athirupa Geetha Manichandar)