Hyderabad-based plastic recycling startup, Banyan Nation, won the Dell People’s Choice Award for Circular Economy Entrepreneur at the Circular Economy Awards held earlier this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It is the first Indian firm to be shortlisted for and win a Circular Economy Award.

The startup won the laurels for “using data intelligence to integrate a largely informal supply chain to maximise plastics recovery and reuse,” as per a statement released by Accenture, a co-sponsor of the awards. The media release also stated that till date, the startup has recycled over seven million pounds of plastics and has integrated more than 2,000 waste workers from the informal sector into its value chain.

The startup was founded in 2013 by Mani Vajipey and Raj Madangopal. It was mentored in its early stage by the global private equity fund, KKR and was incubated by T-Hub. In March 2016, the startup had raised $800,000 in seed funding from Artha Capital.

Banyan Nation has worked with Tata Motors Ltd on an automotive bumper recycling initiative. In addition to this, the French cosmetics company, L’Oreal has used shampoo bottles made by Banyan Nation from old plastic bottles. These were the two partnerships that put the firm on the global sustainability map.

The Circulars is the world’s most prestigious circular economy award program. It is an initiative of that World Economic Forum. The award offers recognition to individuals and organisations worldwide that are making notable contributions to the circular economy in the public, private arena and society. The awards are hosted on an annual basis at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

The startup collects consumer and industrial plastic waste, which it recycles into granules termed as “Better Plastic”. The company claims that the “Better Plastic” it produces is just as good as the more widely used virgin plastic.Banyan Nation has recently signed a MoU with the Telangana Government to help develop a standard operating procedure for the management of government generated e-waste through the startup’s IoT –enabled dashboard. The startup also won the Intel & DST Innovate for India Challenge 2.0, for which it developed a zero-waste platform designed to streamline and automate all stages of urban recycling operations.

(Picture courtesy: unreasonable.is)