With a background as a production engineer, an MBA in marketing, and a wealth of sales and marketing expertise in a variety of industries, Nandan Bhat fit the mould of the typical corporate professional until he made the decision to go in a different direction. He had always wanted to start his own business since his undergraduate days and had spent many hours discussing different business ideas with his pals. In 2020, he made the decision to put some of these ideas into reality and take action on issues that were important to him.
With two objectives in mind: to re-use, re-cycle, and up-cycle plastic trash in the intention of saving the ecosystem and to give the Kaarigars, the craftspeople, better opportunities and a means of subsistence, he founded EcoKaari.
Eco implies environmentally friendly, while Kaari means Kaarigar (Artisan). The term is a representation of the interdependence and connection between artists and the natural world.
Using a Charkha (spindle) and a handloom, EcoKaari upcycles waste plastic into exquisite handwoven fabrics. These textiles are handwoven by young people and women from low-income families. By combining traditional Indian crafts with upcycled handwoven materials with modern designs,the brand hopes to innovate and offer sustainable options.
From rags to riches
“The manufacturing process started with the collection of wastes which we don’t do by ourselves. We have collaborated with a couple of organisations who are working with rag pickers,” Nandan informs.
He continues, “Once the plastics are collected and sorted by those guys(rag pickers working with particular organisations) then they send them across. This is the first source from where we get the wastes. Second, the wastes come from the donations, third the corporates and companies send us their wastes, fourth we take it from the wholesalers.”
The entire procedure is done by hand.
Once the plastic is delivered to the facility where the team operates, it is cleaned, sanitised, and thoroughly dried. After drying, they are sorted by colour to remove any remaining shades of that colour so they won’t need to dry them again.
The clothing is then manually cut into long strips with scissors, rolled into a traditional charkha.
“Then we hand our handloom to get the fabric out of it. Once the cloth is ready then we make the products out of it,” adds Nandan.
The team makes sure that the arrival of ingredients for the products follows a green procedure in addition to making the products themselves green. That is what differentiates things. For instance, if you see a product that is green but the remainder of the manufacturing process is polluting, it’s a waste. EcoKaari’s procedure is entirely manual and devoid of energy or chemicals.
Second, the brand gauges it’s success by the volume of plastic it is able to recycle and the number of jobs it creates.
“So these are the two socialisation and environmental impacts that we measure,” comments Nandan.
Moreover, when a product reaches the end of its useful life, the brand also takes it back from the user to reuse it or properly dispose of it.
Customary challenges
Coming this clean for the brand was accompanied by some nasty challenges and Nandan walked us through some of these difficulties that he had to face and overcome.
He says, “To be frank people usually think that plastic is available everywhere, but in a true sense, it is not available in the right form, and might even be dirty. We are working with artisans, who come from regular families, we are not working with rag pickers. So, it goes a little below the dignity to ask them to clean such kind of dirty plastics, for eg. a plastic bag with a sanitary pad inside it and all other health issues come under that.”
Although initially it was a little challenging to locate plastics, after two years of receiving numerous donations from all around India, including corporate donations, the brand now has a good handle on the situation.
Furthermore,the fact that the brand has female staff from modest backgrounds who were looking for work added to the issue. So they had to teach them how to use handlooms. Handlooms are produced throughout India by specific communities under various labels, but there is a community engaged that remains within that specific group. It was difficult for the team to teach a layperson how to use a handloom because it requires a lot of time for someone who doesn’t understand how it works. And overall it took us 4-6 months to instruct the populace.
“These are some initial challenges we have faced. Apart from that, we faced the regular startup problems. We continue to encounter issues, like the cash flow. I have to deal with 4-10 lakhs that I have to pay to workers per month as salary.”
Changes occur in the severity of the problems. Before, Nandan needed just one team for sales, but now the brand has three or four. And according to him, as a brand he is entering the phase where he must develop the team.
Future will be fruitful
With challenges of such magnitude, the brand’s future goals are also huge, and Nandan is determined to fulfil each of these goals. The brand will be quite close to building 100 or more production facilities, similar to the one in Pune, over the next five years. He also plans to set up a unit in Bhopal, Karnataka, soon.
He anticipates that in those five years, these single units will also provide 5000 jobs and support 5000 people’s livelihoods. EcoKaari has already completed the first year of a five-year target; the remaining four years are under action.“We can also upcycle plastic bags up to 2 lakh from each unit every month,” Nandan concludes.
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