Consuming fewer resources and producing minimal waste has become the need of the hour. Commonly known as the sustainability of resources has created a great impact on Veena Balakrishnan and Sudharshana Pai who in return has taken their initiative to a more accessible level in 2018.
About six months ago, The Twos Company India was founded by the duo, graduates from National Institute of Fashion Technology, Chennai, and aimed towards reducing the carbon footprint through producing zero or minimal waste. They launched a forever and afterwards solution - Everwards - for the purpose of providing materials that can be used from day to night as an alternative to the already existing plastic, rayon, nylon and other materials containing harmful chemicals. They wish to create awareness towards the depletion of the sources we already have and the harmfulness of the waste that we produce.
The range of products vary from notebooks and plantable pencils to personal hygiene and health care products like gourmet soaps, lip balms, powdered shampoo, toothpaste and mosquito repellent. They also have a collection of cloth made bags and pouches, stainless steel razors, straws out of bamboo and steel, menstrual cups and products like soap case, loofas and scrubs made out of coconut fibre.
“Back in college, we had an elective paper called ‘sustainable development’ where our professor used to teach us beyond sustainability in fashion. That created the spark in us and made us discuss a lot about the need of the same,” says Sudharshana, who was a junior to Veena during college days.
The sustainability enthusiasts state that more than reducing the amount of waste produced, finding what was the right product and where to buy it in order to actually reduce the impact on the environment was challenging where misleading of information can create more harm than the actual truth. After continuous long research, they find even recycling to be resource consuming and thus upcycling would be the best way to reduce actual waste produced. The difference is that recycling will require machinery, electricity and manpower, whereas upcycling is reusing the already used products into something useful.
“We used to take up challenges like producing no waste in a day or creating our own products instead of buying, which can be called as the initiative of the whole idea. After all, change should begin from within,” says Veena.
There is a common notion that says the sustainable living lifestyle is only for the well-off whereas truth be told, the whole movement is taking us all back to our grandparents’ days. Where we carry our own bags and boxes to get our groceries, use natural products on skin and hair.
All the products they promote are not just eco-friendly but also promotes local producers, cottage industries and artisans. The e-commerce platform is planning to deliver goods wrapped and cushioned only with newspapers.
Veena’s wedding that happened this June became viral in the media because of the motif it carried along with the wedding vows - the zero waste wedding. The usual 3-days wedding was cut short to half a day. And her grandmother’s saree was the bride’s wedding attire and the groom wore a shirt from his wardrobe itself. The glasses at the catering which were ‘eversilver’ to giving out the excess food at orphanages and the kitchen waste for manure and fertiliser production, the marriage became a ‘Zero Waste’ success. Her teammate also expressed her wish to get married the same way.
“Our future plan is to ensure we help people procure and use everything Zero Waste in their life. No plastic shall enter their homes. The change in the mindset would bring the change,” concludes the duo.
