Chips Packets Become Sunglasses in Pune Recycling Venture

Anish Malpani walked away from a comfortable life in New York to solve one of India's toughest recycling challenges. Now his Pune-based company Ashaya is transforming chip packets into sunglasses.

The real breakthrough isn't just the cool designs. Ashaya recycles multi-layered plastics (MLPs), the composite materials used in chip packets and medicine packaging that normally can't be recycled.

These plastics combine layers of different materials like aluminum and paper, laminated together for longer shelf life. Traditional recycling can't separate these layers, so MLPs pile up in landfills for decades before being burned.

Anish's journey started in 2017 when he felt something was missing despite professional success. "Things were going well for me professionally and I enjoyed working hard," he says. "But I wanted to contribute something to the world that would make people richer, and not just me."

Before returning to India, he spent two years learning social enterprise in Guatemala and Kenya. He worked with local entrepreneurs and urban youth, gaining hands-on experience that he calls "better than an MBA and cost one-fifth of the degree."

Back in India in 2019, Anish researched poverty and discovered most poor people worked in waste management. Waste pickers face dangerous conditions with no protection, dog bites, and life expectancy as low as 39 years.

At Mumbai's massive Deonar dumping ground, the scale of plastic waste hit him hard. He realized he could solve two problems at once: reduce plastic waste and help waste pickers earn more.

Together with Jitendra Samdani, Anish founded Ashaya. Their brand "Without" makes what they call the world's first sunglasses from chip packets, turning low-value MLPs into fashionable products.

The Ripple Effect

Ashaya's model does more than keep plastics out of landfills. By creating value from previously worthless waste, the company helps waste pickers earn better incomes from materials they collect.

The process compounds MLPs into pellets that become sunglasses frames and other products. Each pair of trendy eyewear represents plastic that won't sit in a landfill for decades or release toxic fumes when burned.

What started as one person's conviction that recycling needed to be "much more than a WhatsApp story or viral LinkedIn post" has become a working solution to India's plastic crisis. Anish proved that impossible plastics just needed the right approach.