Plastic is one of the greatest inventions of the human race. It is durable and has high strength. However, it’s stable polymer structure makes it hard to get decomposed in nature and thus it becomes a major reason for environmental pollution. People all around the world complain about pollution but no one asks the question of who is responsible for it?

Of course, we are ourselves responsible for plastic pollution. Because it is us, who use the plastic most and throw it away into the environment. This causes the production of more and more plastic bags to growing demands. While the world is busy complaining about plastic, this 26-year-old chartered accountant came up with an amazing solution to control the use of plastic bags. 

Akshaya Agrawal from Kolhapur, Maharashtra is a nature lover and has been doing activities at his end to conserve the environment. 

Akshaya has opened up a zero waste organic lifestyle store chain, with his friend Gajendra Choudhary. The chain goes by the name ‘Adrish’. The first store of Adrish is opened in Pune, Maharashtra. The word “Adrish” means “ God of the Mountains”. Akshaya chose the word for his store chain to make it a symbol of natural habitat and environment conservation. 

The main agenda of Akshaya behind co-founding this store chain is that it should be able to develop a sense of nurture and concern for nature to make it greener and sustainable. Akshay says that through Adrish, he wants to convince the stakeholders to think above themselves and create a better environment for everyone.

In Adrish, the farmers who are collaborative with them, are using natural & organing farming techniques unlike artificial & synthetic practices to grow crops and food. Through slow process production techniques, they try to grow crops which retains nutrition in them. They have tied up with more than 8000 farmers from across the nation who adopt organic farming. 

Besides this, Adrish people have come up with an idea of not at all using plastic made bags in their stores. The customers have to bring their own bags and containers to carry the purchased products like cereals, pulses etc. This way, the store won’t be responsible for creating any plastic waste. They call is ‘Zero Waste Organic Buying’. 

Adrish’s products include oils which are wood-pressed, flours and powders which are stone-ground, and seeds of the heirloom variety. This way they also avoid the use of machines which not only produce pollution but also consume fuel.

The major cause of marine pollution is also plastic bags, majorly those which goes into the packaging of products. This plastic also pollutes roads & rivers and are responsible for killing marine and wildlife. Adopting organic farming techniques, along with conventional ways of processing oils, flours and spices with an add on of No Plastic Packaging, we can hope to see Adrish make a change in the nation in the environment conservation mission.