RecycleX, an Indian startup that won the International Trade Center (ITC) Ecopreneur Award in 2021, turns plastic waste to sustainable bricks for use in construction.
ITC wanted to showcase the two young founders and requested a multimedia feature with Fairpicture to be used on their website and various social media platforms, including YouTube.
Client
International Trade Center
Visual Creator
Deepti Asthana
Theme
Green competitiveness
Location
Gujarat, India
Date
June 2022
Seeing a cow eating a plastic bag on a street near Mumbai was Vedant Gandhi’s turning point. With both single-use plastic and cement being major threats to the environment, the engineer decided to repurpose plastic as construction material, thereby addressing the management of two major pollutants. After his initial inspiration hit, he met his co-founder Abhishek Chhazed, who had just finished his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. They set up a small lab in Vedant’s backyard, where they experimented with collected waste from corporations, trying out different samples for making bricks. Every month, the company recycles 20 tonnes of plastic, 300 tonnes of construction and 200 tonnes of industrial waste and avoids producing cement entirely. A five-hour drive outside Mumbai in Gujarat, their manufacturing unit is working on carbon-negative electricity generated from a solar farm nearby.
Photo: Deepti Asthana / International Trade Center / Fairpicture
Vedant and Abishek succeeded in convincing the local Bharuch city government to pave 200sq feet with their newly developed material. This first project brought media coverage for the startup and incoming grants from various incubators soon made establishing a processing plant possible.
Photo: Deepti Asthana / International Trade Center / Fairpicture
Deepti Asthana, the Fairpicture visual creator who worked on this assignment for ITC, met the founders, Vedant and Abhishek, in May 2022 in Gujarat. She came up with a multimedia story, which reflects the current status of India’s waste management and the hope RecycleX’s story creates.
The photos and video from the assignment were published in combination with an article on the ITC website and social media channels. Vedat says: “For me, an ideal world would be developing self-sustainable green cities and a plastic-free world where we can live in harmony with nature.” How amazing to see two individuals who are making this seem even closer than before.
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