Upcycling plastic trash into tote bags and home decor | Ep. #82

<p>Diwali…the festival of lights brings with it a lot of chores such as cleaning, making delicious delicacies as well as shopping. So this season I went on hunt to find out circular brands in the retail sector and I’m happy to share with you my conversation with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/amita-deshpande-aa7a7b14/" target="_blank">Amita Deshpande</a> from <a href="https://www.recharkha.org/pages/about-us" target="_blank">reCharkha</a>.</p> <p>reCharkha EcoSocial is a Social Enterprise, founded on the belief that, development can only be sustainable if it is bottom-up! This means, sustainable development is possible only when it begins at the grassroots and involves an empathetic understanding of communities.</p> <p>reCharkha’s founder Amita Deshpande is an IT Engineer who later went on to do her Masters at Purdue University, USA with a focus on Sustainability.</p> <p>For almost 14 years, she worked with CSR teams of multinational corporations, consultancies, non-profits, and community-based organizations in the United States and India.</p> <p>Pained by the longing to do more for the society, she leveraged her rich experience from her consulting days to start her social enterprise Aarohana EcoSocial Developments 7 years back . Last year they revamped the brand to what is known as <a href="https://www.recharkha.org/pages/about-us" target="_blank">reCharkha Ecosocial</a>.</p> <p>She’s a fabulous human being and her long-standing dream is to develop a sustainable village and live in it herself, which she wishes to fulfill through <a href="https://www.recharkha.org/pages/about-us" target="_blank">reCharkha</a> and her EcoSocial Planet.</p> <p>Show Notes:</p> <ol> <li>We understand the importance of using Charkha to weave plastic trash;</li> <li>We cover the journey of reCharkha in brief and Amita shares interesting insights of her trigger points for starting the brand;</li> <li>Amita shares some eye-opening facts from her volunteering days in Uttarakhand villages;</li> <li>We discuss how reCharkha is clo