New Delhi: India can address its massive plastic waste problem and replace a significant portion of its naphtha imports by scaling up advanced chemical recycling technologies, with a Chandigarh-based startup pushing a cost-efficient, modular process designed for rapid deployment, said a report by PTI.
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India generates about 9.3 million tonnes of plastic waste every year — the highest globally — according to a 2024 Nature study. Flexible packaging such as polythene bags and pouches, largely made of polyolefins like polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), forms the bulk of this waste and is difficult to handle through mechanical recycling.
“The challenge of plastics really happens at its end of life,” said Amit Tandon, founder and CEO of PolyCycl, who has spent over a decade developing chemical recycling technology that converts non-multilayer polyolefin packaging into pyrolysis oil.
PolyCycl’s Contiflow Cracker Generation VI, a patented chemical recycling technology launched in early 2025, converts hard-to-recycle plastics into high-value products. Developed over more than a decade with over 150 man-years of research and development, the system integrates a fully continuous thermo-chemical pyrolysis process with refining.
The technology converts low-grade plastics such as single-use bags and contaminated packaging into liquefied hydrocarbon oils. These oils undergo multi-stage purification to yield food-grade polymers, renewable chemicals and fuels.
By contrast, traditional mechanical recycling — the dominant method globally with recycling rates of only 10–12 percent — relies on sorting, washing, shredding and melting clean plastics into granules, often resulting in downgraded materials unsuitable for food-grade applications.
“In India, around 70 percent of FMCG packaging is in a flexible format, much of which ends up in landfills,” Tandon said.
According to Tandon, the technology enables “true circularity” at the molecular level, producing resins for food-grade plastics, sustainable aviation fuels and renewable chemicals, while reducing fossil resource use by 75–90 percent and cutting carbon dioxide emissions by over 40 percent.
Industry estimates suggest that India’s 5.7–5.9 million tonnes of non-multilayer polyolefin packaging waste could generate around 4 million tonnes of pyrolysis oil annually at 70 percent efficiency. This oil can directly substitute naphtha in petrochemical plants, potentially offsetting a sizeable share of imports.
India imported around 3 million tonnes of naphtha in FY25, even as total consumption exceeded 12 million tonnes amid rising demand.
“Production costs are lower than fossil oil, with market premiums due to high demand for renewable oils,” Tandon said.
Unlike batch processing systems, PolyCycl’s technology operates continuously, with sorted polyolefin feedstock fed round-the-clock into the reactor. The modular architecture lowers capital expenditure by 50–75 percent compared to comparable technologies deployed in the US and the EU.
“The fully continuous design is crucial for scalability,” Tandon said, adding that chemical recycling produces hydrocarbons with “limitless demand” in the petrochemical sector.
Founded in 2016, PolyCycl offers modular plants with capacities ranging from 15 to 100 tonnes per day. These plants have lower capital costs than global peers and are projected to deliver EBITDA margins exceeding 50 percent.
The company’s main R&D centre is located in Kalka, Haryana. PolyCycl is in advanced discussions with four-to-five potential licensees and is targeting one-to-two reference plants in India over the next two years, alongside global licensing opportunities.
As Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) rules tighten recycled-content mandates, Tandon called for stronger enforcement backed by monetary penalties to ensure compliance.
“We can build and license from India for the rest of the world. Petrochemical majors have an interest in receiving these materials to make circular polymers,” he said.
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With its modular design and compatibility with existing petrochemical infrastructure, the technology is positioned for rapid scale-up, offering a pathway to reduce naphtha imports while turning plastic waste into a domestic resource.