The Fashion and Design Industry have been named one of the key propagators of climate change and environmental devastation the world over. According to the Indian Textile Journal, at least 50% of the textile waste is recyclable, but only 25% makes it there. The rest is strewn across our streets, our landfills and lastly our waterbodies. Marine Life suffer greatly, with these tiny bits ingested by fish and later, by humans causing disease, devastation and death.

The SusTaInd Project by Architect-Designer Nisha Mathew Ghosh calls for good, responsible, stewardship of the earth through responsible and conscious design. The textile experiments set up at her sustainable textile maker studio ELEATZ developed a prototypical circular strategy for home textiles. This process ropes in textile and fabric stores, tailoring units and designers to contribute their seemingly harmless pieces of fabric discard to be included in products designed by Nisha Mathew Ghosh’s studio- ELEATZ.

The move is one that hopes to replenish and restore oceans and waterbodies, freeing them from the toxic chemicals that leech from fibres and colours dumped in our landfills. These colours are used instead to create beautiful works of art that pay homage to the best designer of them all: Mother Nature.

Dragonflies with wings that are speckled with myriad colours, blooming flowers and abstract plants tell stories that hope to bind the people, for a natural cause. The aim is to remedy the devastating wreckage that has been cast upon our natural resources, especially our oceans with products that can decorate walls, windows, ceilings and furniture.

ELEATZ SusTaInd: Nisha Mathew Ghosh has succeeded in creating an employment strategy to weave stories out of waste fabric using her skills as a colourist, architect and designer. Her SIFT-SORT-UPCYCLE method collaborates with all these key stakeholders to collect and use fabric shreds and cut outs to create uniquely handcrafted designs that form the motifs on her curtains, dhurries, rugs and tapestries.

The final stage of these last waste shreds is taken to a handmade paper factory where it is recycled into paper. The result is an amalgamation of colour created through a fusion of fabric waste that are delicate, calming and life-saving.

The team at ELEATZ will soon embark on a programme to build more stakeholders and policy makers into this possible circular strategy to cleanse and restore our rivers, lakes, streams and oceans free from textile waste. India, the land of rivers that today run polluted with sickness and death, receives a beacon of hope with ELEATZ. It IS also an open call to interior designers and architects to build their textile ideas by utilising clean waste with Eleatz Sustainable, for a cleaner India.