Resource consumption in India has increased by over six times in the past 45 years due to rising factory output, urbanisation, and population explosion and is expected to double by 2030. The global resource consumption, today, is 92 billion tonnes, including China with 35.2 BT; India, 7.4 BT; USA, 6.6 BT; Germany, 1.2 BT; and Japan, 1.1 BT. The resources consist of fossil fuels, biomass, metal, and non-metal ores. Against this backdrop, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has drafted a National Resource Efficiency Policy (NREP), with an aim to double the recycling rate of key materials to 50 per cent in the next five years and enable the upcycling of waste. The draft policy, released on July 23, 2019, envisions setting up a National Resource Efficiency Authority (NREA) to help develop resource efficiency strategies for different sectors and adopt them into a three-year action plan. The policy aims to achieve 100 per cent recycling and reuse rate polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic by 2025. The seven key sectors that have been identified are: automobile, plastic packaging, building and construction sector, electrical and electronic equipment sector, solar photo-voltaic sector, and steel and aluminium sector.
The agenda is to develop a circular economy in which use and dispose model won’t work. So, the emphasis is on recycling the materials, increasing the efficiency of use of these resources and regenerating resources sustainably. The ‘circular economy’ is based on 6R’s—reduce, reuse, recycle, redesign, remanufacture, and refurbish. At least 96 per cent of India’s mining capacity is located in the 13 mineral-rich states of Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Goa, and Rajasthan. Resource efficiency should be followed across all sectors and demands focused intervention from all the stakeholders. The NREP has to see how the existing policies are currently doing to promote resources and how life cycle thinking should be promoted across all stakeholders to avoid their isolation. The resource efficiency policy also helps develop different strategies and adopt them in a three-year action plan.
Though India can meet its current demand for raw materials for thermal power generation, iron and steel, aluminium, cement and mineral fuels for coal and lignite, it still has to rely on import for critical materials, such as molybdenum, copper, and nickel. This could make it vulnerable to supply shocks, considering rising material consumption, which is up six-fold from 1.18 billion tonnes in 1970 to 7 billion tonnes in 2015.
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The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had imposed a ban on diesel vehicles which were more than ten years old in the National Capital Region because of the rising pollution levels. Under the policy, the government plans to establish centres to collect such vehicles and carry out the deregistration process. There would also be shredding centres to segregate materials for recycling. By 2020, about 20 official dismantlers are planned to be established across major urban centres. The plan would ensure 75 per cent recycling rate for vehicles made before 1990, 85 per cent recycling rate for vehicles made between 1990 and 2000, and 90 per cent recycling rate for vehicles made after 2000. Recycling rate in Europe is about 70 per cent, whereas in India, it is only 20–25 per cent as the country depends on imports of critical raw material including nickel, cobalt, molybdenum, copper, and oil, etc.
Apart from that plastic waste is another concern, contributing 8 per cent of the total solid waste. The aim is to achieve a 100 per cent recycling and reuse rate polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic by 2025.
Gradual reduction of dependence on virgin materials and enhancing the reuse of construction and demolition waste is also a part of the policy. There will be emphasis on developing codes and standards for quality of secondary raw materials to ensure confidence in the product. Thus, by 2025, at least 30 per cent of total public procurement of materials for civil construction can be from recycled materials.
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Policy steps
* Setting up solar panel recycling infrastructure
* Transitioning to ‘zero waste’ by converting solid waste to value-added products
* Promoting aluminium scrappage and recycling
* Creating zonal scrap collection, segregation, and treatment facilities
* Developing codes and standards for quality of secondary raw materials
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