What An Idea! Pune Entrepreneur Upcycles Discarded Tyres To Make Footwear, Raise Environment Awareness

Entrepreneurs leave a mark with their 'ideas' and the impact gets magnified when it solves major societal issues along with providing value.

Such is the story of Pooja Badamikar, a Pune-based entrepreneur, who has used her education and idea to up-cycle discarded tyres and turn them into pretty footwear, thereby offering an environment-friendly lifestyle choice.

"One billion tyres are discarded annually in the world. I started working with help of local cobblers and made two prototypes. That's how the journey began," Badamikar told ANI.

A post-graduate in renewable energy, Badamikar has been working on converting scrapped tyres into footwear for the last two years. With her footwear brand 'Nimital', she has been offering a sustainable alternative and hence controlling pollution which would have increased with a plastic sole that is usually used in footwear.

"Worldwide we generate around 1 billion scrapped tyres every year. So, I started thinking as to what can be made from tyres that can be used on a daily basis and at the end footwear was my conclusion," she added.

Speaking about her journey, the entrepreneur said that she had quit her job in the IT sector in 2018 and started with Nimital. It was the same year she was awarded the 'Upcoming Woman Entrepreneur' award with Start-Up in India competition. By recycling the tyre into footwear the environment has been saved in many ways, she emphasised.

"Conventionally we use version rubber or plastic material as sole for footwear but we have replaced it with upcycled tyre and by that, we are helping to reduce the landfills, secondly we are helping to reduce the material like plastic to come to market and the third thing is we are reducing the use of resources such as oil and water which otherwise might have been consumed for manufacturing of that plastic or version rubber," Badamikar said while explaining the process.

"This is an alarming condition for all of us because the garbage levels are increasing around us, we have to reduce it and upcycling is the key to the new world," she added.

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