Mother Dairy launches India's first naturally degradable milk pouch ahead of World Environment Day

Mother Dairy on Tuesday unveiled what it described as India's first naturally degradable milk pouch, a packaging innovation the company said would leave no trace of plastic in the environment.

The Delhi-NCR rollout is set to begin June 5, coinciding with World Environment Day, starting with the company's cow milk variant. Mother Dairy sells around 55 lakh litres of milk per day across multiple states and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB).

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The new pouch uses a degradable packaging technology that enables the material to transform into bioavailable wax, which is then broken down by microbes present in the soil into natural elements. The company said the packaging is designed to degrade in soil within a few years, as opposed to centuries for conventional plastic.

"We undertook over four years of research to develop a naturally degradable milk pouch that leaves no trace of plastics in the environment," Jayatheertha Chary, Managing Director of Mother Dairy, said at a press conference in New Delhi.

The company said the pouches will remain recyclable, with the key differentiator being their ability to also degrade into natural elements addressing the problem of fugitive plastic, or plastic that escapes formal waste collection and recycling systems.

NDDB Chairman Meenesh Shah said the transition would not affect consumer milk prices. "The newly introduced packaging is designed to naturally degrade in soil within a few years rather than centuries, and importantly, this transition is being undertaken without any impact on consumer milk prices," he said.

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Mother Dairy was commissioned in 1974 under Operation Flood, the government's dairy development programme. Besides milk, the company markets dairy products under the Mother Dairy brand, edible oils under the Dhara brand, and fresh produce and frozen foods under the Safal brand.

India generates significant volumes of plastic waste from flexible milk pouches annually. The dairy sector has been under pressure to address single-use plastic packaging given the scale of daily consumption, particularly in urban markets such as Delhi-NCR.