THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Prashanth Menon is weaving dreams from old clothes. Old garments and cloth pieces get upcycled to a range of merchandise-- from cloth bags to pet beds-- giving an afterlife to cloth waste.
Prashanth’s start-up ‘Easy Stitch’, a stitching firm, has introduced the upcycling concept. Cloth wastes get a fresh spin as a range of articles such as cushion covers, cloth bags, pet beds, pen holders, flower pots, wall hangings and storage for essentials are crafted out of them. The start-up picks up old clothes from households for Rs 100. In return, one gets 10 upcycled cloth bags. “Cloth waste ends up as landfill. We have tied up with over 70 tailors who remake old clothes,” says Prasanth.
It started after Prashanth’s mother Prabha Menon’s stitching initiative went online. “We started an initiative where we went to clients’ houses to take measurements. Soon we began getting a lot of orders and we tied up with other tailors,” he says. Undergarments and clothes used by patients will not be collected to avoid hygiene issues. In the past month, the firm could upcycle 1,000 kilos of cloth waste which were obtained from over 15 households.
The initiative currently functions solely in the capital city. Ten per cent of the cloth waste received is unusable; these are used to fill pet beds and punching bags. “The initiative is a social intervention to reduce pollution and create employment for the tailors as they complain about not receiving regular orders,” he says.