Conserve HRP caters to the "fashion with a conscience" crowd by marketing chic hand-made accessories crafted from recycled materials. Conserve employs 300 under-served laborers, mostly women, who acquire the disposed materials and create bags and belts that are sold in stores internationally.

by Rajya Karipineni - New Ventures India

Conserve HRP exemplifies new environmental trends in India's private-sector by converting trash to treasure. Lower-income employees collect plastic rags from neighborhood streets and press the waste into a thicker, durable material, known as Handmade-Recycled Plastic, used for stylish handbags and accessories. The material can be compared to leather in quality, but produces a wider range of colors without any artificial dyes.

At the heart of this process are the 300 rag-pickers that collect the waste plastic used for the product line. Founders Anita and Shalabh Ahuja started Conserve HRP as an offshoot of their environmental NGO, but take as much pride in the ongoing recycling activities as they take in the sustainable lifestyle provided to their employees. Anita and Shalabh value the connections made with each employee, who come from all over India and even Bangladesh to work with the company. With such a diversified pool of labor, Anita and Shalabh initially had serious language barriers to overcome - the two speak contentedly of their creative solution to this challenge that involved tapping into the only common language among Conserve employees: Bollywood.

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