Page 31 - Plastics News September 2026

ENVIRONMENT NEWS
The notice states that declaration/recording of
purchase and sale transactions with unregis-
tered entities will be discontinued on the por-
tal. An exception has been provided for trans-
actions involving micro and small Brand Owners
and transactions related to PWPs, as applicable.
Immediate Compliance Required
CPCB has directed all stakeholders to:
♦ Obtain registration on the Common EPR
Portal immediately.
♦ Ensure all plastic packaging and plastic
waste-related business transactions comply
with regulatory requirements.
♦ Properly report applicable transactions
through the portal.
♦ Ensure their unregistered suppliers and buy-
ers obtain registration immediately so that
transaction reporting can continue.
Compliance Is Creating A New Recycling Economy
A and compliance credits are becoming strategic
packaging line in Pune recently found it-
self renegotiating supply contracts not
because of resin prices, but because of a
compliance certificate. The certificate had noth-
ing to do with product quality or shelf appeal.
It existed to prove that a defined share of the
packaging’s plastic content had actually been
collected and recycled after the product was
sold. That single document now shapes which
vendors a brand will work with, and at what
price. This is the quiet machinery of Extended
Producer Responsibility (EPR). What appears to
be an environmental compliance framework is
also creating a new commercial market, where
recycling capacity, verified material recovery
September 2026
Impact on the Plastic Industry
The notification is expected to make the CPCB
EPR Portal a more critical compliance checkpoint
for plastic packaging transactions. Producers,
importers, brand owners, manufacturers, sellers
and plastic waste processors will need to verify
the registration status of their business partners
before undertaking or reporting transactions.
CPCB has warned that non-compliance will at-
tract action in accordance with the Plastic Waste
Management Rules, 2016.
Source - Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Ministry
of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government
of India.
assets. Packaging is no longer judged solely by
value is influenced by what happens after con-
what it costs to manufacture. Increasingly, its
sumers throw it away.
A cost that used to disappear after the sale
For most of the packaging industry’s history, a
brand’s responsibility ended at the point of sale.
What happened to a wrapper, bottle or carton
after a consumer discarded it was someone
else’s problem: a municipality’s, a ragpicker’s,
or nobody’s in particular. India’s Extended Pro-
ducer Responsibility (EPR) framework for plas-
tic packaging, administered through the Central
PLASTICS NEWS 33