New Delhi, Dec. 11 -- Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) at NITI Aayog and Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) joined hands today to speed up India's shift to a circular economy, marking a major push toward reducing waste and reusing materials across the country, as per a NITI Aayog release.

At the centre of this effort is a new nationwide start-up acceleration programme under HUL's Project Circular Bharat. The plan is to find and support 50 young start-ups over the next three years. These start-ups will work on simple but important ideas that help India reuse more and throw away less.

The programme focuses first on plastics, and looks for start-ups creating ways to recycle plastic, set up reuse and refill systems, or build new kinds of packagi...