Tables out of old cycle rims and penstands from used colouring pens—who’da thunk it?

Nilotpal Baruah
He doesn’t look old enough to be out of high school, and in true schoolboy-fashion, he’s loves getting his hands dirty and mucking around in trash. But there’s nothing kiddish about Suren Vikhash U’s interests. Rather, his two-year-old company Thunk In India is a great example of how one man’s junk can be made into another man’s treasure, that too for a profit: it takes everyday waste materials—juice cartons, biscuit and chips packets and soft drink caps, among others—and transforms them innovatively into things like CD cases, rugs and handbags.
The 25-year-old Suren has been elbow-deep in dirt for some years now. His graduation project at Bangalore’s Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology was on creatively addressing waste management. Apart from interacting with waste experts in the city, he also interned with Daily Dump, a local company that helps households manage their waste by converting it to high-quality compost. The project and the internship were “eye-openers”, says Suren. “When I visited land fills, I realised that basic segregation between dry and wet garbage doesn’t actually take place. The whole process of the life of a waste material was also a revelation,” he recalls. A lot of the waste that ends up in landfills isn’t biodegradable, which means it spends years leaching chemicals and harmful substances into the soil before finally decomposing. Plastic bags, drink cartons and bottles remain the biggest concern. “These have a very long life,” explains Suren. His brainwave: use the residual life of this trash in a creative way. “There was a lot that could be done with the waste—but wasn’t being done. This made it a big business opportunity,” he says. Read more
Source : business.outlookindia.com
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