Gayatri Fabian, primarily based in Bengaluru, affectionately labels herself as a hoarder, expressing her fondness for accumulating gadgets, significantly bottles. “I can by no means have sufficient of them. I might go to scrap sellers and wander round in search of pretty-looking bottles,” she exclaims.
Nonetheless, quickly sufficient she discovered herself in a unusual predicament — her home had turn into a battleground of bottles! With a twinkle in her eye, she confesses, “There was no respiratory area left. My poor youngsters teased me relentlessly, however hey, I couldn’t half with my treasured assortment.”
Way back, somebody sensible aptly expressed, “One particular person’s trash is one other particular person’s treasure.” Carrying the sentiment ahead, Gayatri began to search for methods of utilizing the mammoth quantity of bottles in her storage room.
That is how she discovered ‘Kavi The Poetry-Artwork Venture’ on Instagram, a enterprise that converts glass waste into items of dwelling decor and utensils. Based by Noida-based Madhuri Balodi and Amit Singh, the venture collects glass bottles from ragpickers and prospects, and converts them into serving units, platters, consuming glasses, lamps and different such gadgets.
“I had by no means seen anybody do that earlier than, so I spoke to them, I resonated with their ideology a lot that I shipped six cartons filled with bottles to them. They made me all kinds of issues like planters, platters, vases, wine glasses, jars and lamps from these bottles,” she informs The Higher India.
“The standard of the merchandise is so good, I’ve gifted so lots of these items to my family and friends,” provides Gayatri.
Testing the waters of sustainability
As per a report by Inexperienced Sutra, India produces three million tonnes of glass waste yearly. Out of this, solely 45 p.c is recycled whereas the remaining leads to landfills.
And for 32-year-old Madhuri, sustainable dwelling has all the time been a priority.
“We don’t realise how a lot hurt we do to the surroundings with our day by day actions. We’d suppose that these glass bottles go to recycling however the floor actuality is kind of totally different. Most of them find yourself in landfills,” she says.
Madhuri met Amit whereas working within the media business. “Amit and I had a really related outlook in the direction of life and sustainability. We might chat about how we might do one thing about it and ended up brainstorming concepts for hours. Being within the media business, each of us have been uncovered first-hand to innovators world wide who have been working within the sustainability area. We regularly heard subjects like photo voltaic vitality, upcycling, reusing, and recycling round us,” she says.
“ so many individuals working in the direction of sustainability, we thought, ‘Hum bhi kar sakte hai’ (we are able to do it too). So in 2013, I made a decision to take a leap of religion,” Madhuri shares.
“Once we began, the idea of sustainability and carbon footprint was not as fashionable as as we speak. Individuals weren’t as well-informed in regards to the hurt we do to the surroundings, and plenty of didn’t care about what occurred to waste,” she provides.
So the duo began brainstorming concepts. Madhuri got here throughout numerous folks changing bottles into items of decor. The duo determined to strive their hand at it too and used bottles at dwelling to make a number of lamps and glass jars.
They then determined to put up them on Fb. “We received an amazing response. To my shock, we additionally received an exhibition invite from The Instances of India in Hyderabad. We offered out all of the items,” she says.
This gave Madhuri and Amit the push that they wanted.
Upcycling bottles into purposeful artwork
They determined to stop their jobs and dedicate themselves to their enterprise. They began ‘Kavi The Poetry-Artwork Venture’ in 2013, and have transformed over seven lakh glass bottles into items of dwelling utility and decor to date.
“Whereas we had sustainability on the core of the venture, we additionally needed to earn cash so we might repay the rag pickers and different workers. So we began to host numerous Fb campaigns urging folks to come back be a part of us with their bottles,” she says.
“We marketed it in a approach that caught folks’s consideration — we requested them to come back with their bottles and that we’d convert the bottles into no matter piece they fancied. This gave a lift to our enterprise, and by phrase of mouth, we began getting flooded with orders,” she provides.
Their merchandise are priced anyplace between Rs 300 and Rs 1,600.
The duo didn’t have any formal coaching in working with glass, so they’d their fair proportion of errors. “Glass breaks very simply and we’ve got to be fairly cautious with it. We used the web and employed some glass artists to assist us with the method. Now we have had lots of hits and misses, however it’s observe alone that has helped us come to date,” says Madhuri.
She provides that they concentrate on the ending touches very rigorously so the merchandise don’t really feel upcycled, however relatively really feel model new!
“Our social media campaigns additionally resulted in one thing very candy,” she remarks. “When folks got here to us with their bottles, many shared particular tales behind every of them!”
“We had folks saying issues like ‘I opened this bottle when my daughter was born’ or ‘My greatest buddy gifted me this bottle 20 years in the past’. They arrive to us with requests to save lots of the bottles and protect them in a memorable,” she provides.
Madhuri and Amit share that such requests and tales make their jobs much more particular and add a component of problem to their work.
The journey from waste to marvel
Speaking about how the method of upcycling begins, Amit says, “There are two methods during which we gather bottles. First, via our BYOB (carry your individual bottle) initiative, we remodel the bottles that individuals carry to us into no matter they request them to be. Second, we collaborate with rag pickers who gather and convey bottles to us, for which we pay them.”
Amit and Madhuri have a community of greater than 150 ragpickers in and round Noida.
“The collected bottles are sanitised, after which a tough design is made. We put lots of thought into what might be made out of those bottles. We don’t need folks to only view them as items of decor. We need to promote the reuse of merchandise, so we make utility gadgets like platters and bowls out of them,” Madhuri says.
The duo firmly believes that upcycling is the way in which ahead and desires extra companies to do the identical.
“The pandemic considerably boosted the sustainability motion. Beforehand, folks seen merchandise as mere consumables and have been hesitant to spend money on them. Nonetheless, the state of affairs has utterly remodeled. Individuals at the moment are desperate to make additional efforts to keep away from contributing to world warming and carbon emissions. This presents an opportune second for brand new companies to emerge,” says Amit.
Having been on this enterprise for nearly a decade, the duo now have prospects from all throughout the nation and overseas. “Now we have a robust buyer base of over 80,000 folks from India in addition to Canada, Netherlands, Dubai, and the UK,” he provides.
“By our venture, we need to give folks another and a chance to stay sustainably. This venture is past simply enterprise for us as that is for the surroundings,” shares Madhuri.
If you happen to want to ship them your glass bottles, contact them right here.
Edited by Pranita Bhat
