Conserve.

Conserve produces fashionable goods out of recycled material. I heard about the NGO while I was in Delhi a week back.

I had an opportunity to visit Conserve’s studio and showroom and am thoroughly excited to share their products with you. Conserve started out producing goods from recycled polythene bags that are discarded along the street. If you have ever been to India, you probably noticed that throwing trash right outside of your house/car/rickshaw is completely legit (I’m not saying I support it, just giving the lay of the land). This is one of the many things that makes India look/feel dirty. There has been a tremendous push, especially in large metropolises, to get rid of the trash that has been discarded literally everywhere.

This is where the ‘rag picker’ comes into play. A ‘rag picker’ goes around the city picking up trash, similar to a garbage man, but he/she is way more skilled (than a garbage man). Not only do they pick up trash, they also separate goods into recyclable and non-recyclable goods. I had an opportunity to visit a rag-picker and see how they sort and separate large amounts of trash into plastics, paper, rubber (courtesy of an NGO called Chintan). They even further separate recycled materials into subcategories, for example separating plastics even further into bottle caps, water bottles, colored plastics, clear plastics, etc.

In any case, Conserve has advanced its processes and now uses a variety of recycled materials (including tires) to produce really cool products, some of which I have photographed above. You can find their products at Wholefoods in the U.S. and visit their website at http://www.conserveindia.org.