Meet the Indian eco-trailblazer who threw shade at corporate life

euronews (in English)

"I was making good money. I had my own apartment. Most people would love it. The thing was, I was depressed."

Transcript

00:00 One day, he just called us. He said, "I don't want to do this."

00:04 So me and my wife asked him, "What do you really want to do?"

00:07 He was really climbing the ladder very, very quickly in New York.

00:10 Despite being very successful financially, he didn't really want to do that.

00:14 I was working in corporate America, in finance, making good money.

00:18 I was the youngest director in the company. I had my own apartment.

00:21 So most people would love me.

00:23 The thing was, I was depressed.

00:25 It wasn't some Cinderella story where I was walking down the streets

00:28 and I saw a packet of chips on the ground and the sun hit my eyes.

00:31 I was like, "Oh, let's make sunglasses from packets of chips."

00:33 It was not that. It was very calculated.

00:35 My name is Anish Malpani.

00:37 We at Fidout make the world's first recycled sunglasses

00:40 from impossible to recycle packets of chips.

00:43 I remember when I was 18, I loved sports.

00:53 My dad let me go to the US to study sports management.

00:56 This was still an expensive affair. He didn't argue with me.

00:59 But then three months into the program, I realized it was a waste of money and time.

01:03 So I added on a different major.

01:05 He changed his major from sports management to go to finance and business

01:10 and then moved on from there.

01:12 I had a great job. I remember them visiting me in New York.

01:15 They knew something was wrong. I was at a park with them.

01:18 And I was like, "Listen, Mom, Dad, I'm not happy.

01:21 I'm really thinking of doing different things.

01:23 And I think I'm going to quit my job."

01:26 He was feeling very frustrated.

01:30 What he noticed, he was making rich people richer.

01:33 And he didn't really want to do that.

01:35 The goal became that I want to come back to India

01:38 because I felt like my ability to make an impact in India would be more than in the US.

01:43 So I quit my job in New York,

01:46 learned about impact in different developing countries like Guatemala and Nairobi,

01:50 spent a couple of years in those countries.

01:52 And then came to India.

01:54 Then I spent the first year researching the waste management space.

01:59 While I was using the waste management space, I found the MLP problem.

02:03 MLP stands for Metalized Multi-Layer Plastic Packaging.

02:10 Basically, your packets of chips, your chocolate wrappers, your Tetra Paks,

02:15 these are all multi-layer plastic packets.

02:20 They contain many layers of plastic fused together,

02:23 making it impossible to recycle.

02:25 It's also very inconsistent.

02:28 So your chocolate wrapper is different from your chips packet.

02:31 It's like the black sheep of the plastic family.

02:33 And that's what led us to work on this.

02:35 Once we get the MLP, everything else happens in-house.

02:43 It first gets shredded into small flakes.

02:47 Then these flakes get washed.

02:50 [WASHING FLAKES]

02:52 They get put into this chemical reactor,

02:56 and our patent-pending process happens.

02:58 We take the separated materials,

03:01 and we convert them into high-quality materials.

03:04 Our solution is different because

03:16 we separate the layers and extract the materials from it.

03:20 And the extracted materials we create

03:22 are way more recyclable than the original MLP,

03:24 which extends the life cycle of this.

03:26 Once we realized that we are getting a material that is of high quality,

03:33 we brainstormed like 200 different types of products.

03:36 Then we shortlisted 70.

03:40 Then we did 27 parameters to evaluate these 70 products.

03:44 And we finally ended up on one that made sense.

03:47 Sunglasses did well in all of these.

03:50 I guess the most important part was that

04:01 it could show off the properties of our material.

04:04 Because if we just made bricks or coasters,

04:06 almost any material can be used for that.

04:08 We can't use any material to make this.

04:10 So that's why sunglasses made a lot of sense.

04:13 The idea of WITHOUT is,

04:15 we want you to consume our products without any guilt,

04:19 because we're working very hard to ensure that

04:22 it's the most sustainable material and product out there.

04:25 So that's the whole idea of WITHOUT,

04:28 and it stands for something more than just a product.

04:30 My ambition is very large here.

04:36 I didn't quit my job in New York to do this.

04:39 I know that you can't rush this.

04:42 This is not some Silicon Valley startup

04:44 that's trying to hit X amount of revenue in two months or three months.

04:47 Our vision is a thriving world without poverty.

04:51 Our long-term play is to sell materials to large manufacturers,

05:02 eyewear manufacturers, furniture manufacturers,

05:05 whatever. The material has different applications.

05:08 So product design is just a way to prove to manufacturers

05:12 this actually works.

05:14 I think we're so far away from what we want to achieve.

05:29 You just can't do it.

05:32 We're just getting started. It's been three years.

05:35 We still have a long way to go.

05:37 We still have a long way to go.

05:39 [Music]

05:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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