Shoes are blinking green on this eco-friendly route

Based in Pune, Pooja Apte-Badamikar’s BlinkGreen has caught the attention of people across the country. What is so special about BlinkGreen?

They make footwear which is upcycled from tyre scraps. Sourced from a local ragpicker, the tyre scraps mainly belong to trucks and are then upcycled into fashionable footwear by local cobblers and tailors who make it colourful. All the designs are made by Pooja herself.

She put things in motion with Rs 50,000 she won as Upcoming woman entrepreneur in the event organised by Startup Yatra.

All her footwear is priced around Rs 500 per pair to ensure affordability. The footwear comes in three varieties – classic (for those who want durability), trendy (for the teenagers looking for fashion) and vintage (designed and customised).

Named Memital, a Sanskrit word where ‘memi’ means tyre and ‘tal’ means sole, BlinkGreen has produced 70 pairs of footwear from its inception. Pooja plans to scale up the business once the number reaches 100 and aims to adopt a push-pull method of business. She will supply footwear through e-commerce websites while simultaneously customising footwear for fashion boutiques across the country.

Once the business scales up, Pooja also plans to source tyre scraps from the Mumbai dockyard where they will be available in larger quantities. All branding for BlinkGreen is currently being done on social media and Pooja plans to expand into her own website which is currently under design.