Waste to Wealth: Inside India’s Green Ship Recycling | Fahim Sopariwala, CEO, GGEPIL

[PARTNERED]

A ship reaches the end of its life. What actually happens to it?
Most people have never thought about it, and yet ship recycling is one of the more remarkable things happening
on India’s coastline. In this episode, host Hrishikesh Kannan speaks with Fahim Sopariwala, CEO of Green
Gene Environment Protection and Infrastructure Limited (GGEPIL), about how a company that began as a
textile group and opened its first facility in Surat in 1989 became one of India’s largest environmental
infrastructure businesses.

The conversation covers the shift from landfill and incineration to resource recovery, what waste to wealth
actually means in practice, and how industrial hazardous waste is converted into alternative fuel and raw
material that replaces coal in cement kilns running at 1600 degrees centigrade. Fahim also explains GGEPIL’s
integrated facility at Bhavnagar, which handles the oily sludge, thermocol and asbestos-bearing waste
generated by ship-breaking, and why its recent EU certification matters for the yards at Alang.

He also discusses GGEPIL’s target of net zero by 2030 and why logistics is the hardest part of that goal, what
India’s hazardous waste policy needs next, and where the sector is heading, from e-waste and water recycling
to solar panel and battery recycling.

Chapters:
00:00 What happens when a ship reaches the end of its life
00:54 Meet Fahim Sopariwala, CEO of GGEPIL
01:00 From GEPIL to GGEPIL, a two-and-a-half decade journey
01:34 Starting in Surat in 1989, landfill and incineration
02:06 The shift to resource recovery and recycling
02:58 Lessons for anyone entering this industry
03:20 Waste to wealth, and what AFR really means
05:19 Why waste used to be only a cost to the generator
05:41 Replacing coal in cement kilns at 1600 degrees
06:38 Turning a challenge into an opportunity
07:00 Green ship recycling and India as a global benchmark
08:15 Inside the Bhavnagar facility
08:51 EU certification and what it unlocks for Alang
09:54 Net zero by 2030 for a waste management company
10:55 EV logistics and greener power at the plants
12:07 What India’s hazardous waste policy needs next
14:42 The wider landscape: e-waste, plastic, paper and water
16:02 EPR and the push for recycled content
16:23 Solar panel and battery recycling
16:54 Advice for young professionals in sustainability
19:01 Closing thoughts

#GGEPIL #WasteToWealth #ShipRecycling #CircularEconomy #Sustainability #HazardousWaste #NetZero

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