Godrej & Boyce is one of India’s largest manufacturing conglomerates. According to Inhabitat, the company have taken steps to increase their overall sustainability by sourcing raw materials from waste. Under an initiative titled the Punah Project, Godrej & Boyce have started converting their own industrial waste into products like shoes, handbags and other accessories.
Annually, Godrej & Boyce have dumped over 18 000 tonnes of industrial waste into landfills. Not only is this catastrophic for the environment but large quantities of materials that require highly sophisticated processes, copious amounts of energy and resources to get manufactured in the first place are wasted. The company now managed to turn that waste into raw materials for upcycling while saving the environment from their mess.
“As initiators of the Punāh Project, our emphasis revolves around developing alternative applications for non-hazardous industrial waste through material design and research. Aiming to adopt a zero waste policy for Godrej & Boyce, we have been looking into ways of eliminating waste generation as well as rethinking the value of discarded materials,” read’s the project’s web page.
The products were recently exhibited at the London Design Festival.
