In Mumbai, waste is being rewritten quite literally as benches, flowerpots, pathways, and school desks. Under the Mumbai Plastic Recyclothon, a joint initiative of L&T and Project Mumbai, more than 500 tonnes of plastic waste have been diverted from landfills and transformed into usable public infrastructure.

The journey begins with citizen participation: households, schools, offices, and societies donate plastic waste in monthly collection drives across 45 locations pan-city. Volunteers then sort, crush, heat-mould, and pelletize the plastic turning it into benches, tiles, dustbins, school furniture, and garden pathways.

So far, outputs include 404 garden benches, 286 school benches, 266 dustbins, 240 flowerpots, 1,000 pencil boxes, and nearly 9,000 meters of recycled pathways. These items are installed in public gardens, BMC spaces, schools, and zero-waste parks. Over 1 lakh families have participated, and volunteer strength has grown to about 4 lakh citizens.

Beyond reuse, the project fosters awareness, behavioural change, and trust: each recycled product is audited and certified, and citizens see their discarded plastic turn into functional infrastructure. The hope is that this model scales, not just in Mumbai, but as a template for urban areas grappling with plastic pollution.