Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP) in Dehradun, India has made a plant to convert plastic from e-waste and it would soon be made operational by January 2019. Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan announced the news on International E-Waste Day event organised by the International Finance Corporation.

“The plant has been set up at Dehradun and it will be operational by January end. The facility, which will be run on a pilot basis, is capable of converting plastic waste into bio-diesel. The model will then be replicated across the country,” Vardhan said.

The plant is capable of converting one tonne of plastic waste into 800 litres of biofuel. The biofuel produced is said to be of highest quality and it can power any diesel automotive vehicle.

The researchers in IIP say that with the help of suitable catalysts plastic can be converted into gasoline, diesel or aromatics.

India is the fourth largest e-waste producer in the world. The waste from computers, screens, smartphones, tablets, household appliances etc is one of the major collaborators of the waste problem.

“Therefore, the contribution of India to the worldwide generation of e-waste is 4.47 percent. We are neck deep into the problem and we have already have got the rules amended in 2018 based on discussions with the industry and other stakeholders. On behalf of our prime minister, we can promise to the whole world that like many other fields in the environment… we will certainly try to do our best on e-waste front,” he said.

Emphasizing on the need of involvement of people, he said that we need to build a social movement around the ‘Green Good Deeds’, an initiative of Environment ministry. The minister said that a change in behaviour is the need of the hour.