Soft loans for green plastic recycling tech on the cards

The West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) in conjunction with the state government and the Centre for Quality Management System (CQMS) will offer a packaged deal on new recycling technology to interested plastic recyclers in West Bengal.

CQMS has very recently developed a green technology for plastic recycling that reduces emission by 90 per cent and enhances productivity of the units.

Existing plastic recycling units use archaic technology which emit large volumes of pollutants into the atmosphere. These have been facing action from WBPCB.

The new technology which would cost around Rs 4 lakh in all could and would bring down pollution besides increasing productivity. S K Ghosh, one of the CQMS staff who worked on developing the technology, claimed retrofitting certain existing equipment with new equipment could reduce emissions and also bring down the cost to just Rs 50,000.

This could be a viable option for units not eligible for bank loans.

"Since many plastic recyclers were in the small and the tiny sector and not under any category of units defined by the authorities, bank finance is a problem for many," admitted West Bengal's minister for environment, Manabendra Mukherjee.

"The government is trying to develop a package in conjunction with the pollution control board and CQMS to help provide finance on soft terms to these units, which are in the unorganised sector," the minister added.

There are around 4,500 such recycling units in West Bengal and approximately 30,000 in the country. The state of affairs in almost all of these units is the same, said Mukherjee.

Shutting down these units was not a solution for it would lead to unemployment though PCB as a quasi-judicial body could take action against them, he added.

"The ideal situation would be to offer the recycling units a better and green technology that will help them reduce pollution but if they do not adopt even this technology, the government would consider shutting them down," the minister said.

The minister said a bill on recycling was awaiting consent from the President for six months now.

If enacted, this could provide more power to quasi-judicial bodies.