Beating plastic with plastic

The world’s annual consumption of plastic materials has increased from around 50 lakh tonnes in the 1950s to nearly 10 crore tonnes today. According to the Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, 15,000 tonnes of plastic waste is generated in India every day, out of which 9,000 tonnes is collected and processed, while 6,000 tonnes is not collected. It was this problem faced by ordinary citizens that disturbed Ashwath Hegde, a Mangalore-born but now Qatar-based NRI entrepreneur.

In order to beat the plastic woes plaguing the world, Hegde, through his company EnviGreen, developed a biodegradable plastic bag made out of natural starch and vegetable oil derivatives — products that are non-toxic and can consumed by plants and animals. 

The bags can dissolve in room temperature water in 24 hours and dissolves in 15 seconds if placed in boiling water. The bags also take 180 days to biodegrade, which means people can discard them without worrying about the environment. However, the bags are still not available in India, 

although they are being distributed in Qatar and Abu Dhabi. The price of the bag is Rs 3. In contrast, a plastic bag is Rs 2, while a cloth bag is anything between Rs 20 and Rs 70.

In previous interviews with various media organisations, Hegde has said that he wants to set up enough manufacturing facilities before the bags are distributed to customers and kirana shops. “We have already started supplying to corporate retail chains like Metro and Reliance, which will start using the bags from December this year,” says Hegde.

According to The Better India, Ashwath has now set up a factory in Bengaluru that produces 1,000 metric tonnes of bags every month. “We had this unique idea of empowering farmers in rural Karnataka by sourcing all our raw materials from them. We are also planning to distribute seeds to help them produce the amount of materials required to make the bags,” he says.