In order to advance the creation of environmentally friendly sustainable plastics, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati created the NRL - Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Sustainable Materials Translational Facility on Bioplastics on its campus. It is urgently necessary to develop substitutes that should have almost equivalent performance characteristics at comparable production costs due to environmental problems related with current plastics.

IIT Guwahati's Officiating Director, Prof. Parameswar K. Iyer, stated in a statement regarding the recently opened Translational Facility, "Such overall technical advancement in the domain of biodegradable plastics through industrial support is a one-of-a-kind endeavour in the country. We are optimistic that the sectors will utilise the knowledge base at their disposal to accelerate future commercial activity in the biodegradable plastics industry because the current plastic crisis needs to be solved right away.

A pioneering academic-industrial relationship, IIT Guwahati and NRL have partnered to create the CoE for Sustainable Materials Translational Facility on Bioplastics. Through the use of waste and intermediate materials, this enterprise will promote both R&D work and the production of biodegradable polymers.

Prof. Vimal Katiyar, Coordinator of the NRL-Center of Excellence for Sustainable Materials and Dean of Research and Development at IIT Guwahati, commented on the R&D work being conducted in this area by the institution: "We, at IIT Guwahati, are targeting to utilise bamboo as the main raw material for production of biodegradable plastics and related products, and once adopted, it will lead to significant industrialization in the region."

Prof. Katiyar continued, "We have worked on different technologies linked to biodegradable plastics and these technologies are open for the industries.