Reliance employees give new life to waste plastic bottles

Collect record setting 78 tons of waste plastic bottles for recycling to
spread message of Swachhata hi Seva

In a one
of its kind collection drive Reliance Foundation volunteers through its
Recycle4Life campaign have collected over 78 tons of waste plastic bottles for
recycling. This record-setting collection drive was made possible by mobilizing
over three lac employees, their family members, partners of RIL and its allied
businesses like Jio and Reliance Retail across their several locations in
India. The collection of 39,00,000 (78 tons) of plastic waste have broken the
earlier record of Costa Rica which had collected 30 tons PET bottles.

The
company wide campaign – Recycle4Life was rolled out in October where employees
were encouraged to collect waste plastic bottles from their surroundings and
bring them to their offices for recycling. RIL and allied businesses across
India participated in the drive spreading the message of recycling for a
cleaner and greener Earth.

Nita M
Ambani, Founder and Chairperson, Reliance Foundation said: “At Reliance
Foundation, we believe that caring for our environment is of utmost
importance.  Building on Reliance Foundation’s ongoing efforts to promote,
practice, and spread the message of Swachhata hi Seva, we have launched the
Recycle4Life campaign to raise awareness about the importance of recycling.
Thousands of Reliance employees and their families across the length and
breadth of India have volunteered as part of this initiative and supported our
record-setting drive to collect and recycle plastic waste. We are committed to
creating a better, brighter, cleaner and greener world for our future
generations.”

Reliance
Foundation regularly supports clean-up activities in the local community. 
Over the last year, Reliance Industries employees have been participating in
the cleanliness drive of the Mithi River and the Versova beach in Mumbai.
Commemorating the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Jio teams from
across the country came together to do a major cleanliness drive in over 800
railway stations. Doctors and nurses from the Reliance Foundation Hospital have
been doing cleanliness activities and community awareness activities in their
local neighbourhood. Engaging with the rural community, Reliance Foundation has
also been supporting cleaning and recycling activities across several villages
in different part of India. 

The waste
plastic bottles that have been collected as a part of Recycle4Life campaign
will be recycled through eco-friendly manufacturing processes into value added
fibres at one of the RIL’s recycling units. For over two decades now as a part
of its sustainable business practise RIL has been recycling post-consumer
(used) waste PET bottles. This is a classic example of sustainability and
circularity as it is the only company in the world that has created a complete
circle from creation of PET resin for making bottles, collection of discarded
PET bottles, converting them to Recron® Green Gold, eco-friendly polyester
fibres for use by downstream textile value chain that converts the fibres in to
high-value sleep products and R|Elan™ fabric 2.0 based fashion apparel.

RIL is
one of the largest used PET bottle recyclers in India and it has developed
R|Elan™ Green Gold fabric technology which has one of the lowest carbon
footprints globally. This is thanks to extensive research and development, and
using its expertise in fibre re-engineering, RIL has created R|Elan™ – a
portfolio of speciality fabrics. R|Elan™ enhances performance attributes in all
apparel segments, such as active wear, denim, formal wear, casual, and ethnic
wear. These fabrics have been created with active participation of Hub
Excellence Program (HEP) partners, spread across various textile centres of India.