Indian Oil Joins Campaign Against Single-Use Plastics, To Commercially Supply Plastic-Based Bitumen For Roads

Country's largest PSU oil refiner and retailer Indian Oil Corporation has taken up various initiatives to support the government's drive to eliminate single use plastic by converting these toxic wastes to productive use.

These initiatives were launched to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatama Gandhi and as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

The company will use its refinery operations to convert the single-use plastic waste into a specialised bitumen that can be used for the construction of roads and highways.

A pilot project has been done at Faridabad via the creation of a "Single Use Waste Plastic" based bituminous road. The company will commercially supply the specialised bitumen for use in road construction going ahead.

"Performance of this road will be monitored by IndianOil R&D centre in association with CSIR-CRRI, and also fine-tune the concentration of single-use plastic to be added," the company said in a statement.

Among other initiatives, the petrochemical major has developed special grade crumb rubber modified bitumen (CRMB55) which has been designed using waste single-use plastic material.

"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," the company added.

Furthermore, the company on Wednesday issued an Expression of Interest (EoI) for procurement of single-use plastic waste which can be economically converted into the specialised bitumen.

The national EoI is for assessing the market availability and willingness of various organised aggregators and NGOs to supply different types of waste plastics in commercial quantities on a consistent basis.