Fuzhio Health and Business Services Pvt. Ltd.

COVID-19 plastic waste management

CURRENT IMPACT

As on August 2023

32 tons

of plastic waste converted to fuel using pyrolysis

Samridh support

Through SAMRIDH’s support, Fuzio intends to utilise the funding support for pilot implementation of its proposed solution. In the first year this project aims to responsibly handling a minimum of 250,000 kgs of dead-end plastic waste, implement the pyrolysis solutions in 3 cities namely Bangalore, Chennai, and Mumbai and start operations with multiple pyrolysis machine owners, recyclers, and Urban Local Bodies

Geographical Focus
  • Pan India with special focus on select cities namely Bangalore, Chennai, and Mumbai.
Potential Impact
  • – Completely stop approx.

    200,000 Kgs+

    of microplastic ash from entering oceans and landfills.
  • – Positively benefiting the lives of around

    5,000

    ragpickers through procurement and safe handling (Assuming one ragpicker picks up approx. 50 kgs of plastic waste per day)

87,000
tons

of personal protective equipment (PPE) were procured between March 2020-November 2021 (WHO Global analysis of healthcare waste in COVID-19)

Approximately
3.4
Billion

single-use facemasks/face shields were discarded daily because of COVID-19 pandemic.

39,000

to 74,000 microplastic particles are being ingested by humans in a year (The Environmental Science and Technology journal)

A research note by the World Bank, found that pandemic-induced lifestyle changes will exacerbate the already acute plastics waste challenges in the region unless urgent action is taken. The chemicals that leach out of these plastics are toxic and can lead to an appalling number of health issues like Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, Bowel disease, Diabetes, Arthritis, Auto-immune disease, Neuro-degenerative disease, Increased risk of stroke, Chronic inflammation, Genotoxicity, Oxidative stress, Apoptosis and Necrosis. A novel, consolidated effort to create a circular economy and reduce the burden of plastic on the environment is the need of the hour. Governments are thus looking to turbo-charge the economy by supporting businesses that can efficiently treat the waste generated and innovate new reusable or non-plastic PPEs.

Pandemic Plastic

Fuzhio Health and Business Services Pvt. Ltd., through it’s solution Pandemic Plastic, Fuzhio Health and Business Services Pvt. Ltd., through it’s solution Pandemic Plastic, a pilot project under Noble Plastic, is working towards ensuring 100% circularity of dead-end plastics by upcycling all such waste into value-added products, through a permanent, collaborative, multi-stakeholder solution focused solely on comprehensively solving the dead-end Plastic waste crisis generated during the pandemic through a 3-level solution: The first phase would involve conversion of dead-end plastics into high-grade fuel for energy generation through pyrolysis, the second stage will focus on value addition to high-value plastics through recycling, the final phase will work towards value addition to low-value plastics.

Pyrolysis is the process of heating plastic in the absence of oxygen to get bio-oil, gas and carbon black. Premium pyrolysis units reuse the gas generated from the process and redirect it back into the pyrolysis chamber to kickstart chemical reactions – thus keeping a major chunk of emissions out from the sky. In the current model, the dead-end plastic pyrolysis by-products i.e. oil and carbon black have a good growing market in India.

This solution will help the Environment (Flora & Fauna) and larger community in the pilot cities as well as approximately 5000 ragpickers who are solely responsible for managing and burning the plastic waste generated in these cities currently.