Aparna recycles old bottles and turns them into home décor. It started as a creative effort and now she has her own studio called ‘Kuppi’.
Kerala: Aparna has a flair for turning scraps into beautiful decorative items. She recycles waste materials and makes home décor items from them. Her designs are just as good as any expensive piece in an antique shop. With the sale of her products, she has opened her own private studio.
Aparna lives in Kerala, the state which is called the land of gods. It is a beloved tourist destination, which means the amount of generated waste is also huge. Aparna shares a story; during her university days in 2017, when she was returning home, she saw bundles of glass bottles and garbage on roadsides. An idea came in her mind that evening.
Aparna started collecting these glass bottles to turn them into something better. Her family members often got upset with her when she started filling all the empty corners with bottles.
An effort to keep the environment clean
Aparna began painting these bottles while adding different materials to make them more visually appealing. She would then transfer these bottles back on the roadsides with a completely different intention than others. The visuals of the roads drastically changed as they looked beautified by these decorative bottles. She would click pictures of her creativity and post it on social media. A lot of people praised her efforts, and shared her ideas with each other.
Utilising the popularity, she was receiving for her work, she educated people to become more socially aware of their environment to keep it clean.
Keeping the lakes clean
Aparna’s small effort led to a big impact. A lake in Mannotturattu, which had become dirty, was cleaned by Aparna and the people she had received support from online. She had made a small appeal, but people gathered in huge numbers to make the campaign a success. It took the entire team five days to clean the lake successfully.
Inspired by mother’s creativity
Aparna’s mother is a nurse by profession but creates interesting things during her free time. Aparna was inspired by her mother’s love for craft and paintings. She says that now, whenever she sees a piece of junk lying anywhere, she recycles it into something new.
Opening her own brand
Initially, people used to tease her for collecting bottles. They would call her by nickname ‘Kuppi’ which means bottle in Malayalam. And that’s the name she used for opening her studio. She registered her studio ‘Kuppi’ with the Tourist Department so she can provide workshops to the tourists.
The studio looks like a mirror house, as when one enters, they are greeted by rows and rows of glass bottles glistening under lights. Aparna invests most of her time in her startup. She receives a decent number of orders and earns up to Rs 60,000 a month.
Read Exclusive COVID-19 Coronavirus News updates, at MyNation.