Not waste matter

Imagine decorating your house, garden or a nearby park with just waste. Doesn’t sound likely Well that’s exactly what a few people in the city are doing — putting waste to good use. Right from decorative items to big art installations put up at festivals, all made out of plastic bottles to vegetable peels, a few artists and environment enthusiasts are doing their bit to solve Mumbai’s waste problems.

Bhairavi Malkani of Creative Box When Bhairavi Malkani first wanted to put waste to good use, it was just for her own creative purposes. Today, in a little more than three years, she has conducted workshops to create products that people would like to bring in to their homes rather than discard. “My focus is to create items out of things that people use on a daily basis.” Her workshop includes lessons on how to make an earring holder out of a tissue roll tube or a book rack using a cereal box. She says, “There are a lot of people who are interested in putting waste to creative use, but don’t know how. That’s what I want to teach them.” Natasha D’Costa, artist and interior decorator Natasha’s passion for doing something creative with waste springs from her passion for trekking. The interior decorator, who has so far put up two full-size art installations made of upcycled plastic bottles at the city’s iconic Kala Ghoda festival, tells us, “There are so many trekkers who just throw away bottles during a trek. One day I decided to pick them all up and do something with it. The first time I did something with waste was in 2011. I started a community program with the Mt Carmel Church in Bandra where I got the community to make a Christmas tree out of plastic and glass bottles. A few years later I put up my first art installation in Kala Ghoda, which was a model of a mountain and a river made just out of plastic bottles. Both the installations got an amazing response.”

IKheti (NGO): Bandra-based environment enthusiast Priyanka Amar founded her NGO iKheti as a way to inspire city-dwellers to take up farming. However, a huge part of doing that revolves around putting your everyday waste to creative use. She tells us, “One example is the grass bench that we made, for parks and gardens in the city. The idea is to get people closer to nature even when they sit in a garden or a park.” Priyanka also set up her own shop in Bandra under iKheti, where she sells products, which are useful for farming and gardening. She says. “Inorganic waste has to be upcycled. We have a lot of items like a planter that is made out of bottles and bird cages. We also create items with waste that our customers may bring in. It is a much better option than just discarding it.”