Now, thats leadership - 3

For over a year now, Thunk In India, Suren Vikhash's Bangalore-based firm, has been pre-occupied with granting a glamorous afterlife to various such stubborn products that refuse to be recycled. Since January 2009, such non-biodegradable waste products as polythene bags, thermocole, and tetra juice packs have transformed into clutches, laptop bags and mobile covers in their pension phase.
 Thunk's sling and beach bags are a rage with tourists in Goa, laptop covers are lapped up by corporates in Bangalore while its multi-coloured clutches are hot favourites in Delhi's boutiques. And from next month, five stores in Mumbai too will start stocking these products — all of which originally came from a stench-ridden landfill, where some time ago, Suren sniffed opportunity.

In 2008, as a final-year product design student in Bangalore, Suren's mind was obsessed with the need to employ lateral thinking to solve problems like waste management. He interned with Daily Dump, a firm that converted organic waste into manure. Here, his job was to create a composter, a machine that converted food waste into manure without taking up too much space. While at it, Vikhash came across various experts in the field of waste management who were involved with managing different kinds of waste—electronic, organic and industrial. As an off-shoot of his final-year project, Vikhash visited various landfills across Bangalore, where he saw chemicals from the heaps of waste slowly seeping into the soil and the water table beneath it. Here, he saw that products which could have been recycled were losing their properties after mixing with each other.

As an off-shoot to his project, Suren visited landfills across Bangalore. While getting sensitised to the problem of waste, he also understood the problems faced by waste managers. He lived with the community in order to establish a link and win their trust.

The Coimbatore boy explains with an example only a Tamilian can give: "In your in-house garbage bag, waste like papers mix with things like electronic batteries and sambar, and end up forming new chemicals that make the products non-recyclable." And there was only one per cent chance of the bag being opened before it reached the landfill, he discovered.

“I began designing prototypes of products made from waste such as plastic, cartons and old wine bottles.” His products were displayed at an exhibition in his school, for which he won the Pan-IIT Innovation Award of Rs. 50,000. “I received the award from the director of Procter and Gamble, who offered me a job in his company. But I knew I wanted to make Thunk my life's mission,” says Suren. His award was used as start-up money.
 
The processed waste is sent for 'up cycling' (to increase durability). “Our system ensures that the waste managers receive steady income, irrespective of whether they work with us or not. Actually, our waste-management system would be impossible without them,” says Suren. “We've also facilitated health insurance schemes and savings accounts, which can be started with one rupee,” he adds.
 
Today, waste is collected from 15 places in Bangalore, Tirupur and Coimbatore; from commercial spaces, hotels, residential and industrial areas. It is segregated by the waste managers through collaboration with local NGOs. Segregated useful wastes are sold on a daily basis to the market and women living in slums split the money generated. The useless waste, that reaches landfills, is processed by another group of waste managers. “Even the cleaning of waste is done using organic products, since it is all about reducing carbon footprints,” explains Suren.
 
Another plan is to start schools for children of waste managers, who otherwise take to begging.