“Design is a formal response to a strategic question” – Mariona Lopez
Today ‘Flex Banners’ have replaced the traditional static mass advertising options. Flex Banners are easy and cheap to print and have great strength, good color retention properties and are also waterproof. But the base material PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) is impossible to completely recycle. While a popular option of disposal, burning of PVC releases cancer causing gases in the environment causing severe health hazards.
Amit decided to take this problem head-on and apply all his knowledge and experience to address the issue of reducing the impact of non-biodegradable materials on the environment.
With this thought in mind, PlusONE Initiative was born.
PlusONE Initiative is an award winning for profit social enterprise founded in 2011, that works on up-cycling of used advertising flex banners to convert them into usable products and thereby extend its useful life. PlusONE Initiative provides a response to give a second life to a single-use plastic product (flex banners) by designing and manufacturing products that are eco-friendly.
The primary project undertaken by PlusONE Initiative is to design and manufacture various products including school bags, tote bags, purses, file folders, pouches, sling bags, laptop bags, and numerous other products from used flex banners for under-privileged school going children and environmentally conscious citizensand organizations
Research indicates that India consumes around 18,000 tons of flex banners every month(equivalent to 50,000 kms in length of 10feet high strip, which, if put in a straight line, can be spread 15 times from the north to the south tip of India). This needs 14,400,000 kW of energy (0.8 kW/ kg) (equivalent to light up approximately 95,000 homes for a month) The water required in the manufacturing process of flex is 22,140,000liters(equivalent to the drinking water requirement of 7,50,000 people)
Less than 1% of this PVC is recycled.
Average usage of flex banners is for 3 months but by up-cycling used flex banners into usable products, the life of the material can be extended by up to 24 months. With its innovative design strategy PlusONE has up-cycled more than 140,000 kg of used flex banners till date.
To involve environmentally conscious citizens, PlusONE has a portfolio of more than 30 products made from same material which are sold to environment conscious citizens and organizations and major part of the profits earned are diverted for manufacturing products for under-privileged school going children.
PlusONE Initiative also intends to provide a conscious response in manufacturing of their products and have a unique distributed manufacturing model, where men and women from low income group are trained in manufacturing of PlusONE products to provide them with an alternative income source.
PlusONE Initiative was awarded for their contribution to the society and business model by the British Council in 2015 and since then and has been appreciated for their efforts by various new channels and Newspapers across India including Swatch Bharat Abhiyan.
Over the course of nine odd years, PlusONE Initiative has worked with different organizations across India to help them reduce their carbon footprint by designing products from their used flex banners.
Today, PlusONE is working on new innovative projects to address issues of sustainability.
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