Waste Wizards

Entrepreneurs experiment with poop and pomace to make paper, and provide an opportunity for reducing burden on forests, landfills

- Jigyasa Watwani

TURNING TRASH into gold requires a little more than the Midas touch—it requires imagination and passion. And Adrian Pinto had it all. For 15 years, he watched wineries across the country producing tonnes of pomace, and wondered if the leftovers could be put into use. In 2012, Pinto, then senior manager at spirits manufacturer Pernod Ricard India, started researching on the composition of pomace, and realised that its fibre could be exploited for paper making. To see it for himself, he set out to manufacture the first batch of grape paper in his kitchen armed with a blender and some nets. “I loved its colour and texture,” says Pinto. And since then, there has been no looking back.

He applied for a course on crafting luxury and lifestyle businesses at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; filed a patent application with the World Intellectual Property Organization in May 2016; and founded Green Paper Works to commercially manufacture the paper. The Mumbai based firm produced 150 tonnes of grape paper this year. With black specks on an off white background, grape paper is ideal for packaging and making files, fold- ers and boxes. Pinto says he has started receiving orders from bulk suppliers in the country and paper crafts manufacturers in West Asia and Germany.

Pinto’s grape paper is an addition to the growing list of handmade papers manufactured from organic waste. Another such product is Haathi Chaap, which was born out of Mahima Mehra’s passion for recycling. A decade ago, Mehra, head of Delhi based paper making company Papeterie, visited a shrine at Amer Fort near Jaipur. The place reeked of elephant dung. But Mehra noticed an uncanny similarity between the dung texture and the fibres used for paper-making. And there sprouted the idea of making paper out of elephant poop.