Mr Kiran Rijiju, Minister of State of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, holds the Tee-Shirt created from R Elan GreenGold fabric made by recycling used PET bottles, flanked by Ripu Daman and ploggers at the grand finale of “R|Elan™ Run To Make India Litter Free” – a 50 cities plogging run with Ripu Daman Bevli – organised by R|Elan™, the next generation fabrics from Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) – received a tremendous response at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi, today.
RIL recycles plastics collected by ploggers
The grand finale of “R|Elan™ Run To Make India Litter Free” – a 50 cities plogging run with Ripu Daman Bevli – organised by R|Elan™, the next generation fabrics from Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) – received a tremendous response at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi, today.
‘R|Elan™ Run To Make India Litter Free’- a plogging run – started from Kochi on 5th September, 2019 with pit-stops in key cities of Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata, culminated here today, covering 1,000 kilometres across 50 cities in India, collected 2.7 tonnes of littered plastics waste.
R|Elan™ has joined hands with Ripu Daman, India’s first plogger, to drive the common goal of inculcating habit of enhancing fitness at the same time keeping the environment clean, among the health and environment enthusiasts in the country.
RIL, manufacturer of R|Elan™ GreenGold fibres, made from recycling post-consumer PET bottles and the greenest fibres in the world, collected the plastics from the ploggers and sent it for recycling.
RIL’s post-consumer PET bottle recycling facility at Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh, recycles 2.25 billion PET bottles every year and converts it into R|Elan™ GreenGold fibres, one of the greenest fibres in the world.
Commenting on the launch of ‘R|Elan™ Run To Make India Litter Free’ initiative, Mr Gunjan Sharma, CMO – Polyester Business, RIL, said: “We are overwhelmed with the grand response that this plogging run has received across the country. R|Elan™ Run To Make India Litter Free has truly helped achieving our moto of spreading awareness about sustainability and circularity and inculcating healthy lifestyle habits among the citizens. We will make performance enhancement apparels from R|Elan™ fabrics made out of the collected PET bottles through this initiative.
We are one of the earliest recyclers of PET bottles in India and makers of performance enhancement fabric technologies. We are strong supporters of sustainability and circular economy concepts, as it will help in making our environment cleaner. We have begun ‘Fashion For Earth’ initiative, under which we are making efforts to inculcate sustainability and circular economy concepts among budding fashion designers and textile industry
participants through initiatives such as Circular Design Challenge at Lakme Fashion Week, and the launch of Earth-Tee. We are also steering the Versova beach and Mithi river clean-up, in addition to other initiatives.”
Speaking on the initiative, Ripu Daman, said: “It’s a dream run. In a true sense. “R|Elan™ Run To Make India Litter Free” is the biggest catalyst in making huge inroads in achieving my dream of seeing India litter free a reality. We have covered 50 cities and 1000 KM across India and spread the word of providing utmost importance to clean environment and healthy lifestyle among thousands of enthusiasts.
We are proud that our efforts were recognised by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and Sports Authority of India had invited us to participate in FIT India Run on 2nd October in Delhi. That provided us stimulus to further intensify our drive.
Though, the run is over now but we have passed on the baton to thousands of ambassadors across the country who will continue the good work of plogging and spreading the awareness about cleanliness and healthy lifestyle.
I would like to thank all the ploggers for joining this noble movement and taking a pledge to continue it.
It’s wonderful to have a partner like R|Elan™, which has been leading innovation in the sustainability and circular economy space and helping us in completing the cycle with appropriate waste management. Together, we have set an example for 1.3 billion Indians and corporates on how each one of us can make a positive impact on the environment and our country, while improving our health.”
Plogging is a combination of jogging with picking up litter. As a workout, it provides variation in body movements by adding bending, squatting and stretching to the main action of running, hiking, or walking. Jothi.S
