In the olden days, cobblers used airplane tyres to repair a sole of a torn shoe, as the rubber of tyres is rugged and strong, which provides the footwear’s sole a durability to run a long way. Along with the repair of shoes, the scrap was re-used. These days, even cobblers also use alternatives to repair footwear. No one utilizes the scrap, which leads to environmental imbalance.
Known with the fact, Pooja Apte-Badamikar thought by making footwear as one of the means of using tyre scrap for reducing scrap for the cleaner and greener nation. With the mission, she started the research and came up with BlinkGreen, a footwear startup that uses truck tyre scrap to make sole of the footwear.
Pooja is by profession an engineer and ex-employee of Capgemini, where she served for 4 years. Along with the job, her dedication, and enthusiasm for greener nation, she enrolled her self for MBA in renewable energy. While pursuing an MBA, she left her job mid-way of her post-graduation and started full-time research on various methods of upcycling scrap to little organize the sector with her efforts and came across tyre scrap. As used or damaged tyres are utilized only in large scale industries as rupturing process- pyrolysis treatment, which is quite an expensive process. Although, if the process not done right, then it can cause immense air pollution.
Pooja thought upcycling tyre scrap would help the environment as well. Known with the fact that tyre scrap is enough in the surrounding, whereas the idea for what exactly she should utilize the scrap was a big question. She was known with the fact that with tyre scrap footwear was repaired in older days. She took the inspiration and decided to make a complete footwear sole using tyre scrape.
For the sole of the footwear, Pooja asked an 80-year-old ragpicker in Pune to source her with the truck tyres. For the fancy look, she contacted a tailor for stitching the colorful cloth that goes into the design for the straps of footwear. She designed 30 designs by herself and connected with a cobbler for handcrafting the sole and straps into a complete product.
In a short time, Pooja has given rise to her own footwear brand named Memital, which in Sanskrit means: ‘memi,’ a chakra and ‘tal,’ a sole. Besides being eco-friendly, the footwear is much durable than those available in the market. The only disadvantage is, it is quite a havier than other processed footwear. Although the footwears are affordable, she prized it around INR 500 for a pair.
Finding an artisan for footwear was very difficult, even in the initial days of her journey, she was worried about the decision she has taken. In 2018, she presented two prototypes of her innovation at Startup India’s organized event, Startup Yatra. Here Pooja won a cash prize of INR 50,000 for her innovation of footwear sole made-out of a truck tyre. Besides, she was also titled as an Upcoming Woman Entrepreneur.
Pooja has produced 70 pairs of footwear till date and plans to scale Memital once the count reaches 100. Besides, she sells footwear through e-commerce websites along with this, she has also customizing footwear for fashion boutiques and wants to spread across the country.
BlinkGreen branding is done on social media. Besides, Pooja plans to create her own website along with hiring interns from design schools for designing the footwear. The cash-prize received is invested in the startup. Additionally, she is in talks with a few investors for funding. Once the startup scale-up, Pooja will source the scrap from the Mumbai dockyards.
