Cheela Mela: Turn Your Rags into Totes!

As the effects of climate change and global warming become more and more apparent, ‘green’ and ‘eco-friendly’ have become the ultimate buzzwords. Big corporations are riding the wave of this trend by greenwashing their products to no end, but smaller companies and organisations with sustainability at the forefront often go unnoticed. Take brands such as Daily Dump, Refillable, Ullisu or Circle Up by Saahas Zero Waste for example—they are just a few of the many brands that focus on being sustainable and encourage leading a more environmentally conscious life.

Alongside such brands are also organisations like Circular Waste Solutions and Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT) Bengaluru that look at smart ways to tackle the waste management problem our country is facing. On a community level, they do this through many interesting workshops and events. Circular Waste Solutions is a NAMA Facility project aimed at a low-carbon transformation of the Indian waste sector that is implemented by GIZ India. One event they recently conducted was the Cheela Mela.

During the flower show that took place at the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens in Bengaluru, Circular Waste Solutions had a stall. From 20 to 25 January 2023, you could take any old, unusable sarees, kurtas, bedsheets, t-shirts and more, to get them stitched into cloth bags. And all this for absolutely free! This is one of the many ways they encourage citizens to carry their own reusable, cloth bags in order to say no to single-use or disposable carry bags. It also acts as a way to give old fabrics, that would otherwise be discarded, a new life and purpose.

The mela has been conducted several other times across Bengaluru and is a simple yet effective way that Circular Waste Solutions stands by their tagline, ‘My Waste, My Responsibility’. When the Cheela Mela was held during the flower show in August 2022, Vani Murthy (better known as worm rani) visited the stall. She had her 10-year-old kurta turned into a bag and exclaimed, ‘I have worn it very often, and I thought finally I should carry it with pride!’

NOTE: This news report was originally written in January 2023, at the time of the events taking place, for Together Magazine.