Team Blitz India
MUMBAI: “So, when you wear these sunglasses, you’re not just wearing sunglasses, you’re wearing change,” says the website, adding, “Wear them without any worries, as we build a world without waste.”
The website is of a green startup from Maharashtra’s Pune which is already causing flutters with a unique approach towards recycling. Founded by Anish Malpani, ‘Without by Ashaya’ has developed a technique to transform multi-layered plastic packages into stylish sunglasses.
Such material is usually used for snack packets and poses a challenge to recycling. It all just ends up in landfills and oceans. The ‘social enterprise’ is reimagining waste and poverty. It is addressing the cause of waste-pickers by incentivising as well through the innovative idea.
Thus, chips packets, chocolate wrappers, milk packets, among other flexible packaging are now being turned into cool shades. ‘Without by Ashaya’ spent the last two years working in a lab in Pune and found a way to not merely recycle it, but to reinvigorate it, the site states. “We chemo-mechanically extract materials from this crappy waste using our patent-pending technology and convert them into sunglasses (and coasters).” It adds.
And there is a note of promise – for other products to be created from the pollutants – along the way. “The material properties we get are close to virgin-like and its applications are boundless,” the group shares.
