Design studio creates dustbins made from recycled plastic in India

WorkshopQ is on a mission to re-think the waste around us and turn it into attractive, artistic designs

Spotted: Sustainable design startup WorkshopQ has designed and created 27 dustbins in India using recycled plastic. The initiative aims to support Nestle India’s Hilldaari programme, which focuses on developing inclusive and resilient models for solid and plastic waste management in India’s tourist hill cities — Mussoorie, Nainital and Dalhousie. 

Through this project, WorkshopQ has successfully diverted 375 kgs of HDPE, LDPE and MLP plastics from the landfills while making the 27 public dustbins, with separate bins for Wet Waste and Dry Waste. 

“With waste pollution exceedingly becoming the bane of human existence, we need to take immediate actions to make our cities liveable for our children through Reusing & Recycling. While designing these dustbins we wanted to create something that is attractive and lures people close to it to see it and in turn dispose of their waste correctly,” WorkshopQ told Springwise.  

While designing the dustbins, WorkshopQ’s main criteria was to make the design resistant to harsh weather along with easy maintenance. For this they chose to use recycled HDPE, LDPE and multi-layer packaging plastics, which when blended together produce a very strong and durable plastic sheet.  

A strong metal frame encased around the recycled plastic sheet lends a parabolic curve to them.  

WorkshopQ founders, Radhika Khaitan Mittal and Madhivi Kahaitan Pittie are both finance students who went on to study an Associate of Arts in Visual Communications in the US.  Inspired to start a movement, instead of just simply a ‘business’, the two like-minded sisters found that there was a lot to do by “simply re-thinking of all the waste lying around us”. Out of the need to innovate with creativity, sustainability, and functionality, WorkshopQ was born, says the Khaitan sisters. Through their art-filled designs, the sisters aim to emphasise recycling and how people perceive eco-friendly accessories.  

While the usual perception of upcycled or eco-friendly art is that it is “earthy” and “rustic-looking,” according to Workshop Q, they aim to show that eco-friendly art can also be “fun” and “individual”. 

Explore more: Sustainability Innovations | Architecture & Design Innovations