Yogesh Shinde, the founder of Bamboo India, recently joined NewsX for an exclusive chat as part of its special series NewsX India A-List. In an exclusive interview, Mr Shinde talked at length about the necessity to reduce plastic, which could be possible only by the advent of bamboo. Bamboo India has been manufacturing local grown bamboo, which can be the most effective solution to reduce the usage of plastic. “To contribute something to India’s economy brought me back. In any time in the future, when the history will be written, I will be known as a contributor, not as a spectator. ” exclaimed Mr. Shinde, who had been a part of the corporate culture but decided to walk on the path of social entrepreneurship owing to his growing concern over increasing pollution in India.
Tracing the journey of the inception of Bamboo India, Mr Shinde said, “The inception of Bamboo India occurred with the vision of ‘Brush, Collosion, Awake’. The motto behind the establishment of the company has been the reduction of plastic with bamboo. India is the second largest bamboo growing country but is not contributing to the bamboo world market. We are not even in the top ten list to import the products. On top of that, we are the world largest bamboo importer. That made me very scared and I thought that we must do something about it. Our target is very simple. We want to reduce plastic waste from our mother Earth.”
Interestingly, Bamboo India is also known to make very innovative products, one of them being the bamboo toothbrush. Emphasising on the need to reduce plastic and shift from plastic toothbrushes to bamboo ones, Mr. Shinde stated, “Plastic toothbrushes are one of the leading pollution contents in the world. As every one of us have been talking about the increasing global warming, I, as an individual, thought of manufacturing bamboo toothbrushes in India. We are one of the first companies to have started manufacturing bamboo toothbrushes with local grown bamboo”. He believes that the usage of sustainable products will be a long term affair. Applauding those individuals for their effort in promoting the principles of sustainability on social media and playing an important role in the reduction of plastic, Mr. Shinde calls them ‘the real superheroes’.
The path to sustainability, which has been led by Bamboo India, has also provided inspiration to other companies to manufacture bamboo toothbrushes. Commenting on the journey of Bamboo India so far, Mr. Shinde said, “To convert the bamboo perception of poor man’s timber to wise man’s timber is what our journey is all about.”
When asked about the challenges one has to confront while running a social entrepreneurship enterprise, Mr. Shinde said, “The first challenge is definitely fundraising. As Bamboo is not a traditional business in India, we faced difficulties in terms of financing. None of the single companies has offered us a loan because they did not understand the potential of bamboo and that is not the end of the world for us. We get funds from friends and family”.
Sharing his vision of the company, Mr Shinde said, “In the next five years, all our products will be available at local medical stores. Till the last four years, we have been a small startup. We have reduced 14 kilograms of plastic with our own initiative. Once the media starts showing interest in the venture, it will be a wildfire and more plastic would be reduced. Bamboo toothbrushes would be available in the supermarket across India by end of this year and maybe the next year, this product will be available all across the globe”.