: IT Engineer Uses Charkha to Upcycle 700000 Plastic Wrappers into Beautiful Bags Mats #IndiaNEWS #Plastic Waste Mahatma Gandhi once deployed the use of charkha or spinning wheel as an important tool

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IT Engineer Uses Charkha to Upcycle 700000 Plastic Wrappers into Beautiful Bags Mats #IndiaNEWS #Plastic Waste
Mahatma Gandhi once deployed the use of charkha or spinning wheel as an important tool to boycott foreign-made products and promote indigenous clothing.
Seven decades later, a software engineer from Pune is using the very same charkha to promote a similar message. The only difference is that foreign goods have been replaced by plastic ones.
Amita Deshpande, the founder of ReCharkha, is upcycling plastic waste including wrappers and bags by spinning it into yarn on a charkha. The yarn is then woven into a plastic fibre on handlooms.
Her social enterprise has employed waste pickers from Pune and tribals from her native, Dadra Nagar Haveli, as a means to uplift the needy.
“I was born and raised in Dadra and Nagar Haveli where greenery, fresh air and clean water were not uncommon. It was only after I moved to Pune for my higher studies did I realise climate degradation. After working in the private sector, I had to make the switch to control the depletion,� Amita tells The Better India.
In the last year, the organisation claims to have upcycled 7,00,000 plastic packets into products such as bags, home decor items, potli, jhola, cutlery kits, storage baskets, grow pots, table mats and more.
The decision to begin an enterprise that dealt in waste was not appealing to many, including the weavers who wondered what good that would bring. When she went to the shops to sell her bags and explained the concept, the shopkeepers saw no value. She was asked to give them for free as buyers viewed it as essentially garbage.
But Amita found unique selling points and kept going till she found a breakthrough. Their revenue pre-pandemic was Rs 70,00,000.
Amita shares the incredible journey of ReCharkha, an enterprise with a social and environmental impact.
Leaving a lucrative career
Amita became eco-conscious when she was studying in school. In a school project, she presented about waste management, a topic that was barely spoken about in the 90s.
Her interest in the same grew when she moved to Pune for college. She would go on trekking trips to learn about nature but would end up feeling bad due to open waste dumping.
“I kept my research on plastic waste on and even implemented some plastic-free practices in my life. I have been refusing polythenes for years now. Initially, my family did find it weird, but eventually, they also adopted sustainable practices,� says Amita.
Life went on for Amita and she joined an IT company in 2005. She worked there till 2009 and then moved to the United States for her Masters. In between this, she found ways to contribute to the environment such as waste collection drives, implementing CSR-led activities, banning cups in her company and so on.

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