Article: Gaga over garbage

Saturday May 30, 2009

By NEETA LAL

Indian entrepreneur Anita Ahuja uses recycled rubbish to craft stunning designer products.

A plethora of nattily crafted handbags, photo frames, wallets, footwear, file covers, necklaces, pen holders and other products greet me at conservationist Anita Ahuja's workshop in New Delhi.

As I negotiate myself through her busy team of tailors and factory workers, I find it tough to believe that each of these uber chic products has been crafted from recycled trash!

But then one shouldn't be surprised. Anita, a concerned ecologist, established Conserve, a non-profit organisation in 1998 to work in energy efficiency and waste management. Since then her organisation has implemented a slew of programmes on pollution control, composting of waste, training in waste segregation, youth energy clubs and energy efficiency management practices.

In 2002, Conserve — now a non-governmental organisation — developed an alternative recycling process that uses freely available waste plastic bags as a resource for income generation for the urban poor. It converted discarded plastic bags into a "renewed" material called Handmade Recycled Plastic (HRP) which is used to make high-fashion products with great market appeal.

As I touch and feel the products, Anita, 50, looks delighted! Indeed she has reason to be. Conserve is today a multi-million dollar outfit that not only generates employment for Delhi's poor but is also wowing domestic and international buyers with its innovative products.

"Since its inception," says Anita, who is president, "Conserve has addressed a number of socio-economic concerns like recycling non-biodegradable trash and creating jobs for the unemployed poor. Delhi is a landlocked city, so if we don't come up fast with viable waste management ideas, we'll soon get buried under our own garbage!"

The social entrepreneur has spent more than 12 years working to find solutions for society's most pressing social problems. Considering waste an "enemy" and recycling a "solution" for minimising and ultimately eradicating this widespread problem, she came up with ideas that were modern, user-friendly and ethical.

When the Delhi government launched the Bhagidari campaign in the 90s, asking the capital city's residents to participate in civic initiatives, Anita and her engineer husband Shalabh rose to the challenge. With a seed grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), they began advocating waste management through seminars and workshops.

Together with the local Resident Welfare Associations (RWA), the Ahujas would collect the waste of several colonies in a park and then segregate it. Wet kitchen waste would be converted into compost while dry refuse like polythene bags would be put aside. Excited volunteers would then think up new ideas to recycle the mountains of plastic bags at the Ahujas' lab-cum-home. Among other things, the team first tried braiding the bags to make various products out of them. But these unravelled very fast and the product soon fell apart.

The relentless brainstorming continued. And after months of patience and diligence, the volunteers hit upon the idea of washing, drying and compressing the plastic into sheets, using a pressing machine designed by Conserve. The sheets were then lined to make a few sample handbags.

The stunning bags were a hit! Sold tentatively at a few retail outlets in Delhi, they were lapped up by the masses as well as the ecologically-sensitive customers who kept coming back for more. The products sold at reasonable prices — handbags retailed between Rs300 (RM20) and Rs1,500 (RM100) while shopping bags were tagged at Rs50 to Rs250 (RM3.30-RM16.50) and wallets between Rs100 and Rs300 (RM7-RM20).

Buoyed by their initial success, the Conserve project grew in size and today involves 2,000 people in Delhi's various slums who collect, sort, weigh and clean plastic bags. The plastic is melted together to create a thicker more durable plastic material. Since the plastic bags come in multifarious colours, different designs are created using strips and cut-outs of bags. No toxic dyes or inks are used.

With the good response from local buyers, the Ahujas felt enthused enough to tap the export market. Today, Conserve exports its products to the US, Europe, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela. Anita has also tied up with Bestsellers, a lifestyle products' chain with 3,500 retail outlets worldwide to sell her products.

"Waste management is a global problem," opines Anita. "We actively promote recycling through our products that are made from Hand Made Recycled Plastic. Today, the project sustains hundreds of families, providing them with an opportunity for upward mobility. Whole communities can be supported through our business model by further developing the collection centres and fabrication units, while cleaning up the surroundings."

Anita and her group have created a raft of colours with the throwaway plastic bags. Once the design samples are approved by buyers and retail shops, the plastic sheets are given to fabricators who live in crowded slums. Experimentation is key and Conserve keeps playing around with novel ideas to launch new accessories, occasionally even embellishing the plastic sheets with embroidery, sequins and other bling.

"Once the basic template of recycling plastic bags into sheets has been established, they can be made into anything — fashion accessories, footwear, lampshades, home accessories — the only limit is our imagination. In fact we're now busy working on our home accessories line that will include soft furnishings, tiles, curtains, footmats, the whole gamut," explains Anita.

Not too long ago Conserve was dependent on funding from the Asian Development Bank but now it is self-sustaining. The organisation is also getting invited to various national and international forums to showcase its unique product line.

Anita had been invited to showcase her accessories line at the Wills India Fashion Week in New Delhi where her handbags sold out in a few hours despite being priced at a whopping Rs10,000 each (RM700).

The conservationist has also presented her collection at the Alter Mundi Gallery in Paris and featured in prestigious publications like Forbes and Fortune for its spectacular waste management ideas. Going gaga over garbage has indeed paid Anita rich dividends!

Related Story:
Recycling the trash

This article was taken from: The Star Online: Lifestyle: Living 30 May 2009