MUMBAI, 4th OCTOBER 2019, (GPN) : To mark the 150^th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi & as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Indian Oil Corporation Limited, flagged off four novel initiatives to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle plastics.

Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas flagged off awareness vans to popularize Repurposed Used Cooking Oil (RUCO).To popularize the RUCO movement across the country on 2^nd October 2019, as a part of commemorating the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr.M.M.KUTTY, Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas along-with Mr Sanjiv Singh,Chairman, IndianOil flagged off 10 LPG delivery vans with banners to promote R-UCO (Repurposed Used Cooking Oil) at Centre Half Service Station, Sadiq Nagar, New Delhi  today.

Me.G.K.Satish, Director(Planning & Business Development), Mr Shyam Bohra, Executive Director, Delhi State Office, Mr. SK BOSE, Executive Director, HR, Mr Subodh Kumar, Executive Director, (AE&SD), Ms Sangeetha Munjal, Executive Director, IndianOil and other senior officials were present during the occasion

Biodiesel is an alternative fuel similar to conventional or ‘fossil’ diesel. Biodiesel can be produced from vegetable oil, animal oil/fats, tallow, and cooking oil. Used Cooking Oil (UCO) can be converted to Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME), which has fuel properties similar to crude based diesel and hence called Biodiesel. Thus UCO is a major source for the production of biodiesel. The potential of Bio-diesel from UCO in India is estimated at 3.5 MMTPA.

Subsequently Mr. Sanjiv Singh, Chairman, IndianOil launched initiatives at Panipat Marketing Complex of IndianOil in the presence of Dr.SSV.Ramakumar, Director(R&D), Mr. Sanjaya Bhatnagar, Executive Director, Panipat Refinery, Mr Shyam Bohra, Executive Director, Delhi State Office and other senior IndianOil officials.

• Construction of a 0.85 km of bituminous road paved with different concentrations of single-use waste plastic at Faridabad
• Introduction of CRMB 55P- special grade bitumen made with plastic waste
• Soluble polybags made from single-use waste plastic for bitumen packaging
• National Expression of Interest (EoI) for procuring of waste plastics

In a step towards reducing the use of single-use waste plastic, Indian Oil Corporation, the second-largest Petrochemical player in India, launched these initiatives to effectively and economically utilize single-use plastic waste.

1. Single-Use Waste plastic-based Bituminous Road

IndianOil’s R&D Centre has conducted a study & evaluated the effect of shredded waste plastic on bituminous concrete. As per the lab tests, the waste plastic roads have the advantages of higher strength, increased durability, lesser rainwater seepage due to plastic in the aggregates, better binding/bonding of mix and lesser stripping with fewer pot-holes.

R&D has worked out various compositions of waste plastic inroads, to be incorporated in aggregates. 850 meters of the road outside IndianOil R&D Centre in Faridabad has been laid for test use at varying concentrations (1%-3%) single-use waste plastic by far the maximum percentage of waste plastic used for paving bituminous roads.

For this purpose, about 16 MT of waste plastic from single-use carry bags/packaging film waste has been used. The performance of this road will be monitored by IndianOil R&D center in association with CSIR-CRRI, and also fine-tune the concentration of single-use plastic to be added.

The plastic road was inspected and test-launched for use by  Dr. SSV Ramakumar, Director (R&D), Indian Oil and other IndianOil officials on 2^nd October 2019 at Faridabad.

2. Special Grade Crumb Rubber Modified Bitumen (CRMB55 )

A special grade of Bitumen CRMB55 has been designed using 2wt% of waste (single use) plastic material. The new grade has equivalent performance to the existing bitumen product CRMB 55 as demonstrated in the lab. One customer has released the first supply of CRMB55  from Panipat when a truck loaded with this product was flagged off by Mr.  Sanjiv Singh, Chairman, IndianOil on 2^nd October 2019 in the presence of senior officials.

3. Soluble Bitumen Poly Bags 

Yet another novel initiative introduced on the day were polybags for bitumen filling produced from 100% single-use waste plastic, which solubilize fully in the bitumen at the time of road paving.  Bitumen is packed in two-layered specially designed poly-bags – one inner liner bag for filling and another outer (raffia) bag with handle for ease of handling.  At the user’s end, the outer bag is removed and bitumen along with the inner bags can be charged into the bitumen hot mix plant. During the bitumen melting process at the road construction site, the inner bag melts and completely homogenizes with the bitumen, which can be further used in the same way as conventionally packed bitumen.

4. Expression of Interest for Procurement of  Plastic Waste 

In order to establish robust supply chain of waste (single use) plastic material for implementing the above initiatives on regular basis and to develop a sustainable business model which comprises of various organized aggregator & NGOs , IndianOil also released a National Expression of Interest (EoI) on 2^nd October 2019, for assessing the market availability and willingness of parties/aggregators/ organizations  to supply different types of waste plastics in commercial quantities on consistent basis.

As a part of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and in a bid to achieve plastic neutrality, IndianOil has worked out these various options of using waste plastics leading to value creation for different stakeholders in the waste plastic eco-system. ENDS