India, with a population of 1.4 billion and rapid economic growth, generates approximately 3.7 million tonnes of plastic waste annually. Between the years 2019 and 2020 alone, the country produced 3.47 million tonnes per annum of plastic waste. This number is only expected to increase, hence India urgently needs to transition to a more sustainable economy, says Thye Yeow Bok, head of Startup Ecosystems Circular Economy and Southeast Asia, Google.
“We believe India’s agile and adaptable tech startups can play a pivotal role here. They are driven to find innovative ways to solve circularity and we hope to give them the necessary resources to realise their full potential,” says Bok.
The concept of a circular economy is based on the principles of reducing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling materials and products.
This year, two Indian startups, Relove and Ishitva Robotics System, were selected to join the global inaugural cohort of Google for Startups Accelerator Circular Economy. This is a 10-week virtual programme for Seed to Series A technology startups and non-profit organisations based in North America and Asia-Pacific. FE spoke to the founders of the two startups about their journey, challenges faced, learnings from Google programme, and more.
Next-gen technology for sorting waste
Ishitva Robotics Systems
Year of inception: 2018
Founders: Jitesh Dadlani, Sandip Singh
Ishitva Robotics Systems aims at solving real-world problems of waste by building efficient solutions based on Industry 4.0 tools, including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and Internet of Things (IoT).
The startup’s journey started with Ahmedabad-based entrepreneur Jitesh Dadlani who wanted to use tech interventions to solve the challenges faced by the waste management and recycling sector. Sandip Singh, a private equity investor from Mumbai, joined him as CEO a couple of years later.
The first few years, the founders struggled to build a team as tech candidates refused to work with them, mentioning that they did not want to work near the dumpyard. Currently, the startup has about 50 engineers and scientists working with them. “Effective sorting of the waste is currently the weakest link in creating a circular value chain. Therefore, to avoid dumping and burning of the dry waste, we focus on creating an effective sorting system to improve both the quantity as well as quality of recycling activities,” says Dadlani.
Ishitva has created a full range of solutions including Suka, which uses AI to recognise and segregate recyclable material at a very high speed, and Sanjivani, which is a fully automated material recovery unit. “Both of these solutions have the potential to transform the entire waste management value chain,” says Dadlani, adding, “Today, Ishitva’s technology-based solutions are being adopted by numerous leading plastic recyclers of India.”
Ishitva has won many accolades, including ‘Best Startup in Plastic Sector by AIPMA (All India Plastic Management Association).
The Google Accelerator programme gave the founders the opportunity to engage and undertake guidance from experienced professionals and industry leaders who helped them craft the growth strategy, a framework on how to scale Ishitva and have a global footprint.
A resell button to boost e-commerce
Relove
Year of inception: 2021
Founders: Kirti Poonia and Prateek Gupte
Relove aims to transform the circular fashion economy in India, enabling customers to resell clothing through brand websites. It offers a peer-to-peer resale marketplace presenting brands with the opportunity to gift their customers a resell button and thereby reducing the carbon footprint by 82%. With the Relove app installed, a brand’s customer can resell their past purchases. This is done directly from the customer’s account on the brand’s website; now with a resell button to click, which allows the customers to resell their wardrobe with the brand. The Relove app calculates the resale value of the product using machine learning based on several available data points.
“The linear system of take, make, waste puts pressure on earth’s resources. By moving to a circular system of making more sustainably and capturing its entire value through reuse, we can become more planet friendly,” says co-founder Kirti Poonia. “Techno-logy has the power to change the way we have structured business models in the past because a lot more is possible now. By building circular technologies that are user-friendly we hope to change the way the world works,” adds Prateek Gupte, the other co-founder.
Relove is live with 60 brands across multiple categories such as women’s apparel, men’s apparel, kidswear and jewellery including Suta, Bunaai, Okhai, Saundh, The Summer House and Snitch.
In its almost two years of operations, the company has managed to save over 13 million litres of water from going into waste through resale. It has also been able to eliminate approximately 22,000 kg worth of CO2, amounting to the CO2 eliminated by 220 trees in a day.
On support from the Google programme, the co-founders said, “One of the sessions on user behaviour data helped us understand the motivation of customers to buy preloved; we utilised the insights from the session to change our messaging on social media and it helped us reach 4 million people in just one month.”