Meemansa's Solutions to Plastic Pollution

The Context

5th June 2023

#WorldEnvironmentDay2023

Joining #peoplesaction movement with JCI, Baroda to deliberate on actions people could take to contribute to the global movement.

World Environment Day 2023 is a reminder that people’s actions on plastic pollution matters. The steps governments and businesses are taking to tackle plastic pollution are the consequence of this action.

It is time to accelerate this action and transition to a circular economy.

It is time to #BeatPlasticPollution.

The Vision on SDGs

The principles of sustainaibility, circular economy are not new, it is not that we are not aware of what it means, the challenge lies in the HOW. At Meemansa we have integrated the principles into their core businesses.

"We’re proud to be a business that promotes eco-friendly business practices. Striving to protect and sustain our environment is a given at every stage of our product lifecycles, from development and production to customer use and disposal.?"

Meemansa's integration of SDGs

BAGS - #SDG12, #SDG8, #SDG5

Meemansa - a design & production house for textile garments - clothing and accessories, has been conscious of the side cuts & excess fabric which goes into dumps and land fills, was looking at ways to prevent the same. The dumping or wasting of fabric was not gelling with the consciousness of founders Priyanka Bapna , Manish Kothari & Rashmi Kothari.

At the same time we were aware of the amount of plastic waste that was happening around us, increasing day by day, and how it was impacting on the environment, water logging, going into dumping.

The first action on REDUCE took place with the production of Upcycled Bags by Meemansa in partnership with ANIMEDH CHARITABLE TRUST (ACT) in slums of Mumbai, initially to provide opportunities to women - #SDG5 to get access to decent work #SDG8

The bags found their way into becoming a replacement for plastic bags. Step by step we spread this project with other NGOs such as Head Held High Foundation Anwesha Foundation Ipartner, and thus contributed to resource efficiency #SDG12 two fold - one by replacing plastic with a cloth bag, second by using the wasted resource of fabric going into land dumps and bringing into the economic circle of use.

Recently some of the retail brand stores #INTUNE has now taken designer bags as an option to promote the idea of using cloth bags, a retail store #Haikosupermarket in Powai, Mumbai is now putting up Upcycled bags on their checkout counters, consuming about 1,000 bags per week

Samples have been made from Denim wastes, jute bag wastes to make bags which could replace use of strong plastic bags

In 2023, Meemansa is building capacity and ecosystems which include access to market, collaboration with Self Help Groups, NGOs and Institutional bodies, e-commerce platform to increase the availability of affordable, designer products which could become an option for plastic bags. They soft launched #circleup vertical which looks at bags as one of the solutions to plastic problems

MASKS - #SDG12, #SDG8, #SDG5, #SDG3

When Covid-19 struck, Meemansa identified an innovative technology of IIT Bombay - #duraprot and #duraprotplus, which was a solution to replace the synthetic (plastic) surgical and N95 masks which were creating and continue to create a huge pollution problem

The technology was bringing together the process integration of textile technology and nanobiotechnology which could self disinfect the Corona virus and Bacteria on contact > 99.99%, had 98% filteration efficacy (equivalent to N95), could be washed and reused - something which was not possible with synthetic masks, excellent breathability - #SDG3

Those who took these masks found them comfortable and kept buying them, as against a surgical mask lasting for 1 day, the Durparot Plus mask provided 30 to 60 days of usage, and thus reduced plastic pollution 30 to 60 times directly.

Add to it the fact that all the ingredients used were organic (natural) and the fabric itself was bio-degradable.

The masks were produced from excess cotton fabric with Meemansa which otherwise would end up in land fills - #SDG12. The centres producing made an opportunity for decent income to Women and Men both - #SDG5 & #SDG8

Meemansa strives to and is committed to work on solutions, contribute to plastic pollution reduction, align with sustainability goal principles, integrate them into our routine on a daily basis.

As a policy and diktat, all plastic generated or collected at both their centres is sent for recycling to their partner company RHINO MACHINES PRIVATE LIMITED who have developed the Silica Plastic Block Technology

Happy World Environment Day