How two Noida youth developed Rs 2 crore venture from cigarette butts

 

The brothers from Noida, Haman Gupta, 27, and Visual Gupta, 29, found their fortune in the ubiquitous cigarette butts strewn all over Indian streets and public places.

According to statistics, nearly 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are discarded globally every year and there are about 120 million smokers in India. Cigarette butts not only dirty the surrounding environment, but also pollute the environment because they take about 10 years to decompose.

The Gupta brothers have developed a technology to recycle toxic cigarette butts into useful materials, which are then used to make various products such as mosquito repellents, mattresses, stuffed animals, key rings, pillows and blankets. Pillows. Launched in 2018, their company Code Effort Private Limited recycled around three million cigarette butts in the financial year 202021 and achieved total sales of Rs 2 crore. Noticed many students smoking cigarettes and throwing cigarette butts in tearooms. When he learned that cigarette butts take a long time to decompose, he and his brother Visual, both non-smokers, decided to get rid of the waist and started researching recycling, which eventually led to the creation of the recycling business. .

"We found that there was no trash anywhere and smokers were dropping cigarette butts everywhere. We identified the problem and found a solution," says Haman, explaining how the idea for starting came about. The business, which started with an investment of Rs. 20,000,000. A cigarette ass generally consists of three parts of the unfinished cigarette with its paper packaging and filling the tobacco, and the filter, in cellulose acetate, a type of polymer." We have about 1015 product categories. We also provide customized services for customers.  

Furthermore, we can add logo or family photo on products if the customer wants," Haman says. They ensure that the recycling process at their factory located in Nazi village in Sector 134 of Noida does not harm the environment. “We reuse waste water generated from polymer recycling and ensure that the process is completely carbon-neutral,” says Haman. The recycling unit has three full-time employees and a team of day laborers.

About 4050 women work for them and work with sewing machines to produce pillows, mattresses and other products. Their products are only sold on social media and are not found on Amazon, Flipkart or Myntra. They also recently created their own website. Collecting buttocks has been a challenge, but they have now set up collection centers in 200 out of 748 districts in India, including 80 districts in Uttar Pradesh. They have also placed collection bins at the smoking rooms of corporate companies, NGOs, Bros and Cafés in Delhi, Noida and Guru gram. The company has appointed around 100 contractors who collect the butts from around the country and send it to their factory in Noida.

Each of the contractors employs around 1520 people under them. On an average, the company receives around 6,0007,000 kilos of cigarette butts each month. The company pays Rs.500Rs.800 per kilo depending on the quality of the waste.“We also collect filters from housing and commercial complexes. We offer them either monetary benefits or incentives in the form of our products, so that they remain motivated to help us save the environment,” shares Haman.

Sharing some interesting statistics, Visual says that about 400 pieces of keychains can be made with 1 kg of stuffing material and 3,000 mosquito paper mats can be made from 1 kg paper.“Recycling of cigarette butts is an unexplored domain, where not much research work has been done and hardly there are any players in.

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