Ramesh Chauhan, Chairman of Bisleri International Pvt. Ltd, aims to set world record by gathering at one place 20,000 kgs of used PET bottles, and handing them over to a company for recycling on October 4
By Neeta Nair
At 75, Ramesh Chauhan, the Chairman of Bisleri International Pvt. Ltd, oozes the energy of a 20-year-old. “I have no intention of hanging up my boots anytime soon,” the veteran says cheerfully. His mind full of fresh ideas, Chauhan has set himself the goal of setting a world record by gathering at one place 20,000 kgs of used plastic bottles - collected over a 45-day period with the help of 2 lakh students from 100 schools in Mumbai – in the course of eight hours during the day on October 4, 2015.
Between August 15 and September 30, Bisleri’s agenda is to collect PET bottles from the streets of Mumbai, which will be transported to one place and handed over to a company for recycling on the first Sunday of October. The plastic will be recycled to make t-shirts, bags, etc.
Says an excited Chauhan, “The planning for this initiative started in October, 2014 just after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for a Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. We conducted a similar drive to collect plastic, but only 25-30 schools participated. However, the enthusiasm of the kids was something that egged us on. A friend of mine suggested that we aim for a world record. From then on, it was a dedicated effort to involve the schools so that we could set an example. If we succeed, then we will follow it up in Chennai, Delhi and Bangalore.”
But this is not the first time that India’s No. 1 mineral water brand is contributing to recycling plastic; in fact, it has been an ongoing process for Bisleri over two decades. Talking about the birth of the idea, the businessman says, “Wherever I went, I saw heaps and heaps of bottles lying around, and the government seemed to be doing nothing about it. But someone had to do something. So in 1995, we targeted the PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) bottles which were a strict no-no for recycling at that time, because even the rag-pickers didn’t know what to do with them. They used to pick up the PVC (Polyvinyl chloride) waste and leave the PET bottles alone because it was not easy to recycle. So we brought together a huge army of rag-pickers to collect PET bottles and recycled them using a machine imported from Japan.”
From having no buyers for PET bottles, Bisleri managed to build an ecosystem where this waste could be recycled and used by creating an elaborate distribution chain. They identified users for such scrap across the country and gradually pulled out once a self sustaining cycle fell in place. The fibre obtained by recycling PET, can be used for making handbags, ropes, fishing nets and other non-food items. Today, India has 3000 such recycling plants, which recycle PET bottles, and a large part of the credit for it goes to Bisleri.
“We are in the packaged water business but we are also creating a bit of a nuisance with the bottles lying around. So I believe we must take responsibility for the used plastic which won’t decompose for decades. While we are not buyers of PET bottles anymore, we have managed to connect the rag-picker with units which will buy this recyclable waste. We were a catalyst in making it happen,” says Chauhan, whose company is also into rain-water harvesting and providing ozone disinfection for clean water in rural areas.
Talking about the way forward, Chauhan who less than a year ago launched Bisleri’s energy drink Urzza, says, “There is still a lot of work to be done on Urzza.”
‘NO MORE COLA BUSINESS’
The man who sold iconic brands like Goldspot, Thums Up, Limca and Maaza to Coca Cola in 1993 also dismissed a possible comeback in the cola market. “Cola sales are going down, there won’t be any new consumers or converts with more and more people becoming health-conscious. Having no market for a product is good, you can build it up fresh, but why will one get into a declining market?” asks the ‘Cola king’ of the 90s.
