Asia’s richest person Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries, has expressed that the company is looking to infuse funds into the waste treatment and management startups, both domestic and global.
The move comes as the Indian conglomerate views that there is a lot of environmental damage, particularly to the oceans, caused by the sheer volume of plastic waste.
“We are looking to fund and are scouting around for all the technology available for waste segregation, recycling, and waste-to-energy. We are thinking about the bets we should be making in this regard,” said Vipul Shah, Chief Operating Officer, Petrochemicals, RIL.
“We have reviewed a few hundred applications from startups and are looking at a model that could be replicated,” added Shah.
Notably, Reliance converted about two million waste PET (Post-Consumer) bottles into fabric in 2018.
While at present, it plans to double the current capacity of PET bottle recycling to five million bottles in the next few years.
In its annual report, RIL said the PET business has involved end consumers in its recycling initiative. It encourages end consumers to deposit empty PET bottles at reverse vending machines installed at Reliance SMART stores, railway stations, and various other locations.