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Enviu

Our Role in Saamuhika Shakti

We aim to provide circular green jobs for waste pickers by creating pilots and ventures. With our partners, we established a Circular Textile Waste Management model to reduce the amount of textile waste in the chain by providing opportunities for waste pickers to increase their income across the value chain.

How we do it

Enviu is currently working on validating the quality of linen produced from recycled fibre to make sure it can withstand 200 washes and comply with 4-star hotel standards. Enviu will then recruit eight hotels and run trials to validate the business model.
Enviu will work with CAIF to help train the waste pickers they employ. By December 2023, Enviu looks to collect and divert close to 30-35 tonnes of cotton waste sorted by waste workers, from landfills. Enviu aims to employ waste workers in alternative livelihood opportunities in the hotels’ laundry, logistics, and warehousing departments, creating income from textile waste for waste workers.

What We Do

At Enviu, we work to create a circular B2B textile service model, starting with the hotel industry. Through this pilot, we focus on the following:

Activities and Impact

The disposal of used hotel linens and institutional waste has been a big problem, adding to the growing issue of textile waste. Through this pilot, we aim to introduce a rental model to manage the linens in the hospitality industry by introducing more sustainable practices and collecting end-of-life linen from partnering hotels to divert it from ending up in landfills.
Our Linen Pilot started with 1.825 tonnes of linen waste collected from Hilton EGL. As the project expanded, we welcomed three more hotels into the initiative, effectively diverting their end-of-life linens from the waste stream. We collaborated with waste pickers and sorters from Hasiru Dala, contributing to the gathering and sorting of discarded linens.
Hotel IBIS Chennai City Centre became our first official partner in responsible linen management, followed by Holiday Inn Express in Bengaluru. In the initial phase, we managed linens for 155 rooms, emphasising teamwork for sustainability and extending the lifespan of linens.
Our operations in Chennai were led by our dedicated female sorters from the Chennai sorting centre. The result?
We successfully diverted 5000kgs of institutional waste from landfills.
Partnership and collaboration are vital, and we showcased our efforts at various events. The pilot received praise as we endorsed the concept at the Professional Housekeepers Association (PHA). We had the honour of speaking at the SAP summit and presenting our work to the Ikea board and Ikea Ambassadors Hub. 

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