Page 25 - Plastics News April 2022

Neeman’s raised $1M of funding in the product directly. dia,” says Amar. Having worked exten-
their seed round from Anicut Capital Taran went on to say Neeman’s has been sively with merino wool, the company
in March 2020 and subsequently raised well-accepted by the customers and is has now started using cotton blended
another round of capital from Sixth regarded as the pioneer in creating the with other recycled material. A natural
Sense Ventures in August 2021, and ‘sustainable footwear’ category in India. rubber sole has also been added to make
in November 2021, Stride Ventures, a “We have seen a 15X growth in just the it completely made-in-India. “We also
leading venture debt firm in India, also last 12 months of business and sold over pride ourselves on being the first Indi-
came in as an investor with Rs 7 crore 3 lakh pairs in three years,” adds Taran. an brand to make sneakers that can be
inflow. Adding to this, Amar says, “We were worn both in summer and winter with-
“These investments demonstrate sup- recently awarded the ‘most promising out socks. The shoes don’t just regulate
port for our vision and product portfo- startup’ in the Telangana Region and temperature but also adapt to your skin
lio. We are geared to scale new heights with Startup of the year by Small Busi- and outside temperature,” says Taran.
by further strengthening our commit- ness Awards 2022. We aim to continue All the innovations made by the com-
ment to the planet by continuing to pushing the boundaries and staying true pany are geared towards achieving 100
launch innovative fabrics. We already to their ethos.” per cent customer satisfaction, says
have an impressive unisex line of four In 2021, the company introduced its Amar. “We want each customer to feel
fabrics — Merino Wool, Natural Cot- first completely made in India prod- a sense of pride and immense comfort
ton, Recycled PET bottles and Recycled uct called Eco-flip (slippers). “Building when they buy and use our product. We
Tyres,” says Amar. a sustainable supply chain within the have had Harsh Mariwala of the Marico
A few things that the brand has con- footwear ecosystem in India was the group tweet about our products saying
sciously focussed on include adopting driving force behind this. We wanted our shoes are the best and most com-
a Direct to Consumer (D2C) route, to resolve very specific pain points that fortable pair of shoes he’s ever owned.”
and the launch via their website, which our customers were facing and therefore “These are all small victories that keep us
made it easy for customers to purchase started looking for vendors within In- going,” he adds.

Lossless Recycling of E-Waste Into Additive Manufacturing Powders

The method requires no heat, no induction and no chemicals; the result is a one-to-one relationship between the input
and the output for most materials. incinerated, becoming lost forever. Re- od requires no heat, no induction and
cycling efforts thus far have focused pri- no chemicals; the result is a one-to-one
marily on these most valuable elements relationship between the input and the
and on recapturing them as quickly as output for most materials.
possible and with the least amount of “The effort is high, but the output is
effort, even if that means creating pollu- very satisfying.” That output is high-
tion, losing other materials and degrad- quality, consistent and valuable materi-
ing the recaptured ones in the process. als suitable for laser powder bed fusion
any of the electronics and electri- Reco E-Waste takes a different approach (LPBF), one of the most flexible manu-
Mcal components that make mod- aimed at less harmful and more com- facturing processes currently available.
ern life possible and comfortable — lap- plete recycling. The Munich, Germany- But the end result is also sustainable and
tops, smartphones, car batteries — are based company (part of Reco Ventures) conflict-free as it comes from secondary
dependent on a handful of valuable ma- has developed what it says is a lossless sources — an important point in efforts
terials. When one of these items returns process for recapturing precious and to localize supply chains, reduce reliance
to a recycling facility at the end of its rare-earth materials and transforming on material sources abroad, and avoid
life, the copper, gold, silver and maybe them into high-purity feedstock, in- contributing to human rights violations
a few other precious metals will be har- cluding very fine and consistent powder in nations that have traditionally mined
vested from the device before the rest is for additive manufacturing. The meth- these materials.

25 PLASTICS NEWS April 2022