trash near Conserve India headquarters

Sorted plastic bags, Conserve India

A few of Conserve India products

Christina, Ann and Jenna in the bazaar, Delhi

In July I had a fabulous two week visit to  Delhi, India, where I was researching a very interesting organization, Conserve India.  This visit grew out of  Bags Across the Globe (BAG) project, begun in 2008, which will culminate in an installation in the UC Davis Design Museum in January, 2011.  Conserve India’s efforts to repurpose plastic bags fits perfectly with my goals in BAG of raising awareness about the damage caused by the estimated 4 to 5 trillion plastic shopping bags used and discarded annually around the world.

C.I. hires the urban poor (called “rag pickers”) to collect trash and discarded plastic shopping bags, and fashions them into lovely handbags and other products.  It thus addresses social equity as well as environmental cleanup.  The trash/garbage problem in Delhi is appalling, and only about half of its trash is picked up; the other half just piles up everywhere.  The living conditions of the rag pickers are equally appalling: many of them belong to the Dalit, or Untouchable, caste.  They have no schools or healthcare, and Conserve India provides both of those for about 300 employees.

C.I. was founded by Anita and Shalabh Ahuja, who direct the company and were my hosts.  I was accompanied by two of our newly graduated fashion design majors, Christina Johnson and Jenna Chen, who will work as interns for C.I. for the next six months.  It is a very exciting and a unique opportunity for them, because they will learn many aspects of the business ( designing, marketing, merchandising, and pricing, to name a few).  No American company of the same size would offer new graduates as much opportunity or responsibility.

I have written an article on this remarkable company and hope to get it published within a year.  I’ll let you know if that happens.  It was very inspiring to see a company that helps clean up plastic bag pollution, hires, trains and educates the poorest people in Delhi, and is making a profit as well!

You can check out Conserve India on the web by just typing in its name.

Hi BAG Participants:
Here is the postcard you will receive when we send your bags.  The postcard and wonderful logo were designed by Sarah Horton.

We used GreenerPrinter, an environmentally friendly company.  Greener Printer has purchased Renewable Energy Certificates (REC’s) from Sterling Planet; these REC’s indirectly offset 355,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emission, through wind energy, from the electricity that Greener Printer uses, thus, offsetting 100% of Green Printers electricity consumption.

GreenerPrinter uses New Leaf environmental papers, which have a high post-consumer recycled content.  GreenerPrinter also offsets 100% of the energy it uses in shipping the postcards.  Here is an Eco Audit that shows the resources we saved by using GreenerPrinter:

-Fully grown trees: 0.02
-Gallons of Water: 15.2
Pounds of solid waste: 1.2
Pounds of greenhouse gases: 3.2
Miles in a car: 2.8

The BAG project is underway!  Student interns Anne and Chantal are sewing bags out of discarded textiles and also out of a discarded vinyl banner.  BAG participants will receive an invitation this month.  We anticipate mailing the bags in September-October.  Sarah is developing the blog.

Stay tuned for more news…