Sahar Mansoor, is the founder of Bare Necessities. She leads a zero waste lifestyle and that bottle in her hand contains the entire waste she has generated in the past couple of years!
Bare Necessities sells home care and personal care products that are made out of things we can find in our kitchens,These products come in environment friendly packaging like glass bottles. What’s more is you can return the glass bottles and get a discount on further purchases.
We got in touch with the young entrepreneur about her journey. Here are some excerpts:
What led to the culmination of Bare necessities?
In my zero-waste journey, I realized we lived in a world with LANDFILL destined products.
Toothbrushes for instance, 4.7 billion of them land in the landfill every year, and take 200-700 years to start decomposing. So every toothbrush you and I have ever produced is sitting on our planet somewhere!
In response to this problem, I wanted to create a company that mirrored the values of zero waste, ethical consumption and sustainability. I wanted to make it easy and accessible for other people looking to consume more mindfully and to encourage others to produce less waste. And thus, Bare Necessities was born.
BN also seeks to capture the essence of India – constantly in a state of transformation yet timeless. At BN we try and marry the old and the new! We take a cradle-to-cradle approach to every product, from the design to manufacturing to distribution. All our products are powered by natural, bare Indian ingredients; which have no harmful impacts on our health or environment. Our raw materials are ethically sourced. All of our packaging is recyclable or biodegradable, which means nothing ends up in a landfill. All products are handcrafted by women in Karnataka.
What were the challenges you faced and still do? Also, how do you deal with them?
Thus some of the challenges I experienced was; the difficulty is articulating what zero waste lifestyle means? Why I was doing it? Why I was carrying own my mug for coffee? Or my box for street momos. I found it hard to find high quality products that I trusted, that were chemical free and plastic free. If these products were available they were hard to access or too expensive.
Also sometimes, you ask for no straw or no plastic and you get it anyway (have since, gotten better as asking people or people are getting more awareness or respectful since I started my journey; it’s gotten easier).
Medicines are still a tough one. I used to wear contact lenses and recently got lasik done, so that’s one less source of monthly trash!
Do you think present day generation is doing enough in this area?
No!!!! By 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish!
I think the ecosystem for zero-waste is still underdeveloped at the movement – by ecosystem I think we need to have the following 5 factors in place:
Awareness:
You, I and everyone in the world irrespective of socio-economic class must be aware about our waste crisis, it’s impact on health, ground water, food supply among social justice issues associated with many waste picking communities.
Right products:
Manufacturers need to provide the right products keeping the entire life cycle analysis of the product in mind. Making products that embody a cradle to cradle philosophy with no waste going to the landfills.
Right places:
These products need to be accessible to all irrespective of socio-economic status.
Right price:
These products need to be affordable to all irrespective of socio-economic status.
Policy environment:
The right policies needs to be in place to encourage this waste free economy to thrive; for examples, government needs to create policies that encourage local manufacturers to produce goods keeping in my circular economy, carbon taxes and green rebate policies that are meaningful and incentivize manufactures to think local and think waste free.
How do you feel when you see yourself bringing about a change in making the environment a better place to live in?
To be honest, I am not sure whether I am actually making any big change. I think there is lots more to do with higher social and environmental impact. Bare is just getting started =)
In all seriousness it’s harder to quantify change or impact when it comes to a lot of environmental issues, because we attribute to something larger, that we don’t have control over; it’s the classic tragedy of commons.
On a slightly more positive note; but we’ve sold over 5000 reusable straws 2000 bamboo toothbrushes and That’s 7000+ less plastic straws and brushes in the landfill. Through Talks and workshops addressed over 2000 people in the past 6 months; so that’s 2000 more people who are thinking about your reducing their waste than before perhaps? Let’s look at this cup half full today shall we?
What are your future plans now?
At Bare Necessities, It’s not just about selling products. It’s about encouraging an earth friendly lifestyle. In the larger sense, BN seeks to change the narrative on waste in India. In the future, Bare Necessities seeks to becomes an interdisciplinary hub, a home for product designers to design products with a cradle to cradle philosophy, a place for policy analysts to work with local government on policy recommendations to manage our waste better, to reduce our waste. A place for behavior economics, ecologists, researchers and consumers alike to build the ecosystem towards a circular economy.
Website:
https://barenecessities.in
Social Media:
https://twitter.com/Bare_