With the whole world making efforts to reduce and reuse the waste and discarded material, many entrepreneurs have been recycling the waste products into reusable items for households. Recently, Kuppai Matters organized a zero-waste festival in Chennai under the ‘zero waste movement’ or ‘Kuppai Thiruvizha’. It is an initiative started by Kuppai Matters. It is designed to sensitize and expose people to the idea of ‘reduce, reuse, repair, refuse, and recycle’.
Chennai’s zero-waste initiative / Image: Kuppai Matters
Started with the aim to collect the waste and discarded products, either directly from households or junk shops. This initiative provides an opportunity for entrepreneurs to express their skills, especially when the state government is promoting startups.
The festival showcased stalls, games, talks, demos, and workshops on source segregation, home composting and upcycling. The one-day festival celebrated the entrepreneurs providing sustainable alternatives to the single-use, disposable plastic products.
During this festival, many non-governmental organizations and startups displayed their sustainable and eco-friendly products, hence demonstrating a zero-waste lifestyle.
The upcycled products on stalls of Kuppai Thiruvizha attracted many visitors / Image: DT Next
The organizations brought together different aspects of upcycling to a variety of stalls. Many products were showcased including bamboo toothbrushes, newspaper bags, glass lanterns, pillows made of cotton scrap and clay water bottles.
One of them was 29 years old Vidya Bhat who reuses the waste and discarded glass bottles and jars to make beautiful lamps for households. She creates these stunning works of art with the help of her husband. She collects empty wine bottles from beaches or junk shops and repaints them to create delightful glass lanterns for home decoration purposes and sells them under the brand name ‘Chittaara‘.
Vidya Bhat with her artworks / Image: The Hindu
Harika Balam makes natural floor cleaners, toilet cleaners and liquid for washing clothes, all made with citrus and jaggery. She also makes other cleaning products like brooms and small dust-cleaners using coconut husk fibers.
Anjanakshi B and U Soundaryan, two architects in their early 20s, are making wooden notebooks and clay water bottles. Both architects started ‘Wallistry’- a small startup after finishing their college. They make teakwood notebooks, terracotta cups, clay bottles, and stonewares for household use.
Using discarded material to create something new / Image: Kuppai Matters
Food entrepreneurs shared their insights on a zero-waste lifestyle too and promoted organic products. There were packaging-free grocery items and plastic-free personal hygiene products on the display too. The workshop on cloth diapers and sanitary napkins, home composting, and cloth upcycling were organized for visitors to participate in. Many speakers shared their journey about zero-waste, plastic-free lifestyle, and community waste management.
Kuppai Thiruvizha inspires everyone to adopt zero waste lifestyle / Image: Kuppai Matters
The products displayed in this one-day festival were a hit and earned customers and more orders for these young entrepreneurs.
Kuppai Thiruvizha sure is a brilliant initiative toward zero-waste living and is truly living up to the phrase “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure”. More of such initiatives are required to reverse the harmful effects human race has inflicted on the environment.
Cute planters made from upcycled bottle and CDs / Image: Kuppai Matters
Via: New Indian Express