What do you usually do with an empty chips packet? Toss it into the bin, right? And then it ends up in a landfill, quietly sitting there for the next few hundred years. But what if that crinkly wrapper could come back as a sleek park bench or a piece of stylish outdoor furniture? Sounds a bit out there? Well, not to Vishal Mehta and Dr Babu Padmanabhan.
Mehta, who spent over 17 years managing infrastructure projects often related to renewable energy, had a growing frustration. “That work deepened my commitment to sustainability, but it also exposed a persistent problem,” he says. “Even sustainable power projects generate significant waste. There simply wasn’t a viable, scalable solution to dispose of it responsibly.”
He didn’t want to just complain about it—he wanted to do something. Enter Dr Babu Padmanabhan, an engineer with a PhD in analytical kinematics from Virginia Tech, and a knack for turning complex science into smart solutions. The two hit it off instantly. Shared values, complementary skills, and one big, bold idea: unWOOD.
Using a proprietary formulation and a patented “Intelligent Compounding” process, they give plastic a second life. “We create molecular coupling in the material, forming a new Macro Molecular Fibre Matrix. This composite is then extruded into profiles that resemble and behave like wood,” says Dr Babu. In simple terms? Plastic trash becomes something you can saw, screw, and sit on.
Of course, when they first introduced this magical plastic-wood hybrid, people were skeptical. “They loved the concept but were hesitant to adopt something unfamiliar,” Mehta recalls. So they set up their own production line, built furniture themselves, and even launched an e-commerce platform.
Today, unWOOD makes outdoor furniture, fencing, even school benches. “During this year, unWOOD will recycle 275 metric tonnes of waste and save 825 fully grown trees from its pilot commercial facility,” Dr Babu says. Their Benches for Change initiative has already impacted around 440 students in underserved schools, through CSR and NGO support.
Their factory in Peenya, Bengaluru, is something of a unicorn in recycling. No water used for cleaning, zero effluents, almost no emissions, and no microplastics. Plus, thanks to Dr Babu’s patented “Fractional Conjugate Geometry”, the process uses mechanical action instead of heat. That means way less energy use.
UnWOOD was selected by Climate KIC for a Catalytic Grant. “It helped people see us not just as a tech company, but as a real solution provider,” says Mehta. Looking ahead, the dream is big—unWOOD factories in every city across India, and eventually across the globe. “We see unWOOD becoming the backbone of cost-effective, sustainable modular housing.”
It’s ambitious. It’s exciting. And it all started with a problem no one wanted to deal with—low-value plastic waste. So next time you crunch up that chips packet, think twice before you toss it. Who knows—it might just come back as your next garden bench.