Swimwear Made of Plastic? These 5 Indian Startups Are Turning Waste Into Fashion

These five sustainable startups have come up with innovative ideas to transform waste into stylish garments. Here’s what they look like.

By Shivani Gupta

March 30, 2024

At a time when the massive waste produced by the fashion industry has been worsening the already threatened environment, these five Indian startups have come up with innovative ideas to transform waste into stylish garments.

1. Goya Swim Company

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At a time when his friends secured government jobs, Bhavesh Chaudhary had no direction in life. Today he has established a multi-crore brand called Kasutam, selling homemade A2 bilona ghee.

Rhea Majumdar, the founder of Goya Swim Company, uses cutting-edge technology to transform recycled ocean plastics into stunning and sustainable swimsuits.

Each clothing item uses about 29 plastic bottles picked directly from the ocean.

2. Ecoline

Father-son duo K Sankar and Senthil Sankar manufacture sustainable clothing like jackets, blazers, T-shirts, and bottoms using recycled PET bottles. They use around eight PET bottles to make a T-shirt, 20 to make a jacket, and 30 to make a blazer.

With this, they save 15 lakh PET bottles from entering landfills and oceans daily.

At EcoLine, PET bottles are recycled to manufacture sustainable clothing.

3. Malawa Kela Resa Utpadan Laghu Udyog Kendra

It’s the first startup in Uttar Pradesh to use banana stem fibre to create products ranging from clothes to sanitary napkins. Founded by Ravi Prasad, it sells footwear, hats, carpets, and other items made from banana waste.

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Prathima Viswanath started Ammamma’s, a packaged food business that sells ready-to-cook chapatis, idli-dosa batter, and more. The entrepreneur wants to reduce ‘kitchen time’ for mothers while providing home-cooked food.

The company is currently earning in lakhs and empowers 450 women.

4. MAYU

Mayura Davda Shah runs MAYU, a sustainable fashion brand that uses fish scales to create eco-friendly, sleek, and textured leather. The brand’s creations have graced the ramps of Paris and Hungary showcasing style with a conscience.

5. Canvaloop Fibre Private Limited

This company, led by Shreyans Gokhra in Surat, makes sustainable fabrics. They use leftover materials from pineapples, bananas, and hemp to produce environmentally friendly fibres, using only 10 litres of water per kilogram.

Their process saves 3,500 litres of water per pair of Himalayan hemp jeans compared to traditional methods that use a lot more water.

Watch this video to learn how these startups are converting trash into fashion:

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Edited by Pranita Bhat.

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