New Delhi, March 16 (IANS). Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has given final approval to 17 Recycled PET (RPET) manufacturing plants. Industry body Association of PET Recyclers, India (APR India) on Monday welcomed the decision, saying it will strengthen India’s packaging supply chain.
According to APR India, this decision of the government will provide about 3 lakh tonnes of food-grade RPET production capacity every year. This will help achieve the government target of using 40 percent recycled content in packaging by 2026-27.
The organization said that after these approvals, FSSAI authorized plants will together be able to produce about 3 lakh metric tonnes of RPET every year, which will be used for food-contact packaging in the beverage and bottling industry of the country.
APR India Director General Gautam Jain said the move comes at a time when the global virgin PET market is under pressure from the Iran-Israel war and other geopolitical uncertainties. This initiative is also in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of circular economy.
In fact, under the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016, the use of 30 percent recycled content in rigid plastic packaging has been made mandatory from 2025-26. After this, a target has been set to increase it by 10 percent every year to reach 60 percent by 2028-29.
According to the industry body, keeping this goal in mind, 15 to 18 food-grade RPET recycling plants have been set up across the country, in which an investment of about Rs 9,000 to 10,000 crore has been made.
These plants use state-of-the-art technology and are set up in accordance with the standards of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change had allowed the use of RPET as a food-contact material in September 2021. After this, in June 2025, the Ministry had also given the freedom to brands and producers to meet the shortfall in the 30 percent RPET target set for 2025-26 in the next three years.
–IANS
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