In Pune, a new company is helping the environment by making sunglasses from recycled stuff. Anish Malpani came up with the idea to use old chip packets to make these sunglasses. He disclosed the project on X social platform and said it was challenging as well as rewarding.
Having transitioned from a finance background to spearheading social impact initiatives, Malpani started his journey in 2021 to develop sunglasses from multi-layered plastics (MLP), notorious for their non-recyclable nature. MLP, often seen in food packaging such as chip packets, is a big environmental problem because it is made of mixed materials that are hard to separate.
Driven by a desire to address the dire issue of MLP waste, Malpani founded the startup Ashaya in February 2021. The team worked with waste pickers to gather old chip packets and turn them into cool sunglasses. Importantly, the money made from selling these sunglasses will help waste pickers earn more and support their children’s education.
The beta version of these innovative sunglasses, branded as Without, has been introduced at a special price of Rs 1,099. Despite being crafted from recycled materials, the sunglasses boast UV polarization, are unisex and weigh just over 25 grams. Also, every pair has a QR code that lets you follow where the recycled materials came from, even showing which waste pickers collected them.
Ashaya guarantees the durability of their sunglasses, promoting them as virtually unbreakable. In the rare event of damage, the startup pledges to collect and recycle the sunglasses, perpetuating the cycle of sustainability.
The project is not just about making cool sunglasses from recycled plastics, but it is also about showing how to make things in a way that is good for the environment.
