Let’s introduce you to Thaely, a brandconverting waste plastic bags and bottles into your daily wearsneakers. Meet 23-year-old Ashay Bhave who transitioned his ‘just a designidea’ into a business model and has recycled 50,000 plastic bags and35,000 plastic bottles since July 2021.
Named after the Hindi term for a plastic bagto draw the audience’s attention to the mounting plastic pollution, Thaely is asustainable sneaker brand that makes shoes from discarded plastic. And you’d besurprised to know that its brainchild is a 23-year-old, Ashay Bhave.
Ashay moved to Dubai three years ago and is arecipient of the Eureka Startup Award at Amity University. The young designersaid the idea for 'Thaely' was born out of necessity and the desire to createsomething unique.
"I started working on the idea at theend of 2017. As part of my design portfolio, I was looking to create footwearthat is cost-effective and safe for the environment. I needed to come up withsomething that uses recycled plastic without creating any more plastic waste,"said Ashay.
He said: "I was in India for vacation,and got a prototype made using this material. I provided the material to acobbler back home in Mumbai, and asked him to work on creating a shoe based onthe design I gave him in the summer of 2018.
"Each pair uses a total of 15 plasticbags and 22 bottles." Though Ashay did not reveal the process throughwhich he derives the fabric from the shoes, he said: "The bags are sourcedfrom scrap processing corporations and supermarkets."
Talking about the price of the sneakers,Ashay said: "It is not going to be too expensive. Somewhere around thesame price as Nike or Adidas shoes." His work was most recently seen atTashkeel studio at the Conscious Consumption Exhibition
Currently, four variants of sneakers areavailable. Soon, Thaely products will be available in retail stores in Dubaiand Europe. Though the product is made in India, it is not a big market forThaely yet; the focus is majorly on Europe, Australia and America.
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