By Prerna Singh
The festival season may have passed sometime back, but it left teaching us new lessons in green tech. This started with a calm shift under the bright lights of Dussehra in Ayodhya. Devotees carried prasad in neat boxes and drank from regular-looking water bottles. They may have looked ordinary, but they were not all made from sugarcane. Not sugarcane juice: a new product known as PLA the plant-based plastic that degrades safely in composting situations. It was a mundane example with a loud message: India can respect tradition, without the burden of plastic waste.
A moment like this does not just happen. Balrampur Chini Mills (BCML) was behind it. They did not simply deliver the prasad packaging for the festival, they built a model. Their Balrampur Bioyug brand made both the prasad containers and water bottles from sugarcane PLA, which was certified to IS 17088 standards even the cap was compostable. The effort fell well within the cadence of Swachhata Hi Seva 2025. Tradition transformed into a clean, modern, sacred-sustainability story of responsibility. And the effort to partner MSME converters based in the south and the west meant that small manufacturers were now included in that story.
However, the essence of this shift goes beyond only one event. BCML is building India’s first fully integrated “sugar-to-PLA” plant, where sugarcane becomes polymer in one continuous chain using renewable energy. It will have a projected capacity of up to 80,000 tonnes a year. This is sufficient production to move from pilot scale to mainstream and achieve cost reductions over time. Currently, PLA costs nearly twice as much as PET. In practice, it is about 1.5 times more due to weight savings and being compatible with existing lines. With increased production and supportive state policy such as the Uttar Pradesh Bioplastics Policy 2024, the gap is expected to narrow even further.
Why now?
India has already banned 19 categories of single-use plastic, and that compostable claims must be verified by a third-party certification and an IS/ISO171088 credential before any product is commercially available. This leads to a level of trust and a clear direction. As a listed company, BCML also reports environmental data through SEBI’s BRSR with regard to accountability as their business scales. Experts agree, if the policy, scale, and public procurement converge compostables will rapidly move from “nice-to-have”, to standard.
The potential is considerable. India’s current PLA market is around 20,000 tonnes, but demand across cutlery, straws, personal care and food delivery is in the several lakh tonnes. With the right infrastructure and scaling, bio-based packaging can reduce landfill volumes, limit emissions, and enhance India’s position in sustainable manufacturing as the world shifts to greener alternatives. Public pilots like Ayodhya become demonstration sites people see, touch, and trust the alternative. From temple towns to urban kitchens, sugarcane is creating a new chapter of packaging that respects culture and the planet and is built to align with India’s priorities.
