Our Story
The story behind India Recycles begins in a thrift store in New York. As a grad student, our founder Renu Pokharna would often visit thrift stores to buy designer clothes at throwaway prices. Upon her return to India, she noticed that with the advent of fast fashion, a lot of clothes were being discarded at a very rapid rate in India. Hence, In 2017, Renu organized the first swap restricted to her friends, of pre owned items such as clothes, accessories, footwear, bags and so on in the city of Ahmedabad.
Since then several swaps were organized, but as more of them happened, we encountered one problem, there were clothes, shoes and other items left behind that didn’t fit anyone or caught someone’s fancy. Hence, we decided to donate them, but problems of choice and dignity arose from donation:
1. Doesn't the poor deserve a choice of wanting to buy what they wanted in settings that didn't embarrass them of their poverty?
2. And how does one decide whom to give to and to whom would something fit better?
Hence, to honor dignity and choice, we decided to do a slum sale of pre loved items at a flat rate from Rs 10 to Rs. 30, depending on the quality. The response we received was tremendous. Items that otherwise would never reach slums in the condition they are in could now be bought easily by them.
This experiment also taught us how little time the poor have for small joys like shopping, in their grueling twelve-hour schedule without weekly offs, they couldn’t go to markets. After this, we started collection drives, with some caveats on condition of items, we allowed donations of everything – clothes, shoes, bags, kitchen items, toys, cosmetics, furniture and so on. This led to an expansion in our operations so we designated 35+ drop points in the city. We now do garage sales every weekend of the month in different slums where community leaders help us organize it.
Since then several swaps were organized, but as more of them happened, we encountered one problem, there were clothes, shoes and other items left behind that didn’t fit anyone or caught someone’s fancy. Hence, we decided to donate them, but problems of choice and dignity arose from donation:
1. Doesn't the poor deserve a choice of wanting to buy what they wanted in settings that didn't embarrass them of their poverty?
2. And how does one decide whom to give to and to whom would something fit better?
Hence, to honor dignity and choice, we decided to do a slum sale of pre loved items at a flat rate from Rs 10 to Rs. 30, depending on the quality. The response we received was tremendous. Items that otherwise would never reach slums in the condition they are in could now be bought easily by them.
This experiment also taught us how little time the poor have for small joys like shopping, in their grueling twelve-hour schedule without weekly offs, they couldn’t go to markets. After this, we started collection drives, with some caveats on condition of items, we allowed donations of everything – clothes, shoes, bags, kitchen items, toys, cosmetics, furniture and so on. This led to an expansion in our operations so we designated 35+ drop points in the city. We now do garage sales every weekend of the month in different slums where community leaders help us organize it.
