Fun with scrap

Startup saga

Did you know more than 981 million tyres are thrown away each year?,” asks Pooja, reeling off statistics about how only a small proportion of these are recycled or exported while more than three-fourths are sent to landfills or illegally dumped.

Statistics are bound to be a part of the conversation when one is talking to IIT graduates but unlike many others, this bunch of five has not restricted themselves to just talk.

Pooja Rai, Vishesh Gupta, Souradeep Paul, Nancy Charaya and Nupur Agrawal, all graduates of IIT Kharagpur, have come up with a unique initiative to tackle the two problems of overflowing landfills and educational challenges.

 “At campus, I was closely associated with a residential care-center (Disha Seema Center)for underprivileged children from nearby villages,” says Pooja.

“The children never really had a space assigned for play in the school, aside from the massive open lawns. My friends, Nupur and Paul, were always discussing ways in which they could make a change. Paul had discovered the wonders of using upcycled tyres for construction during his internship at Morocco, where he worked on innovative aspects of architecture and construction. Our thoughts converged into a single solution — why not make a recycled tyre playground? It was totally D-I-Y, low-cost and a fun way to bring smiles into the lives of these children.”

It’s been two and a half years now and the group has transformed their vision into reality. Schools for underprivileged children have undergone a complete transformation with brightly coloured tyres being used to create swings and other equipment.

“Education is not just books and classroom; education is also play,” says Vishesh Gupta. “But there are not many initiatives to improve the learning component in children’s lives. Most solutions, even when proposed, are often expensive or difficult to implement.

Creating play areas with recycled material solves two pressing issues in one go. First, solid waste disposal issue for tyres. Second, allowing greater outdoor activity in Indian urbanscapes in a cost efficient manner,” he says.

The team has set up a company, Anthill Creations, and they also on-board volunteers on a case-by-case basis for different projects.

“Our architecture background has always taught us to think about the immediate space that surrounds an individual and how it affects them,” says Nancy Charaya.

 “Having worked with tyres in previous projects, we also carry out workshops to train the volunteers and complete most of our projects without the use of any paid help. This is amazing since each person who has learnt the techniques can further the initiative within his domains,” she explains.Their initiative, with its focus on sustainability, upcycling, beautification of public space and community involvement, has not gone unnoticed. Runners-up at the ‘IIM-Bangalore B-Plan Competition’, selected for the ‘IIMB Social Launchpad program’, selected for the ‘Empresario Mentorship Track for 2016-17’ and one of the social start-ups selected for the ‘Startup Leadership Program’ — these are just a few of the laurels they have bagged so far, not to mention the individual achievements of each of the members.

“Think big, act small; that is our motto,” says Souradeep Paul. “Realizing the impact of surroundings was the first step towards change. Every part of working with children has been a joyous experience but the best moments are when little kids come forward on their own to help us in painting and building their own playground,” he adds with a smile.

“We have created an indoor playscape at ‘Parikrama Center of Learning’ in Koramangala and also built a playscape library for a low-income school in Goripalya,” says Nupur Agrawal, adding that both were successful crowdfunding campaigns. “We also organised a  public workshop for furniture design focussing on reusing scrap tires,” she says. With a plan to have over 100 experimental projects throughout the country within the next three years, the group has no plans to give up on their un‘tyre’ing efforts.