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About Without®

We re-engineer impossible waste so we can all re-engineer capitalism.

Most of the world’s waste doesn’t get recycled. And most of the people who collect that waste get ignored. We’re increasing the value of all that waste so no one gets left behind.

Meet the team See our impact
  • Certified B Corporation logoCertified B Corporation
  • 3 patents granted, 5 pending
  • Made at the Cradle, Pune

01 · Why we exist

The world’s waste problem is also a people problem.

It doesn’t just hurt the planet, it hurts all of us.

A sorting pile of used packets of chips, sachets and wrappers Multi-layer plastic

<1%

of flexible plastic packaging is recycled worldwide

  • Packets of chips, sachets and wrappers are three to five layers of plastic, aluminium and paper, fused together.

  • Flexible plastics cause around 80% of ocean plastic leakage.

  • Most of it is burned, buried or mixed into cement, and the material is lost for good.

Two women walking across a waste dump Waste-picker poverty

1.5-4 million

waste-pickers in India live multidimensionally poor lives, and 15-20 million worldwide

  • Most work informally: no contract, no protective gear, no health insurance.

  • Many earn between Rs 3,000 and Rs 12,000 a month, paid daily by the type of waste they find.

  • It is often generational: a waste-picker’s child is likely to become one too.

A heap of mixed fabric scraps Mixed textile waste

92 million tonnes

of textile waste is produced every year

  • Just 12% of the material used for clothing is recycled.

  • Around 60% of textile waste is synthetic, which means plastic.

  • The hardest part is torn, soiled, mixed-fibre waste that even collectors reject.

Figures from the Without® Impact Report 2024.

02 · What we do

We’re putting people and planet first.

When we turn that waste into something more valuable, we can change the livelihoods of the people who collect it. When we do that at scale, everything changes.

Re-engineer impossible waste

We recycle multi-layer packaging and mixed textiles with zero waste. Our patented VerdiCycle process recovers them at up to 120°C, using water and no burning, as three materials: VerdiFLX, VerdiPTA and VerdiMIX.

How it works

Graduate people out of poverty, for good

The people who sort India’s waste mostly work with no contract and no safety net. We employ them formally, at two to three times their previous income, with ESOPs, health insurance and training. Foundation Without® works with their families on a 24-month graduation programme.

Meet the people

Rethink how a company is built

We use our profits to keep scaling our impact. We are a Certified B Corporation, we report our impact honestly, including where we fall short, and our founder writes a letter every quarter on how it is really going.

Read the letters

03 · Our purpose

One vision. Two missions.

Our vision

A thriving world made without poverty, where every person has dignity, equal opportunity, and access to education, healthcare and decent living standards, while contributing positively to the planet.

The company

Mission one

Increase the value of waste ethically, by using technology to convert it into high-quality, scalable, planet-positive resources, while deeply empowering and formalising the informal economy that drives the industry.

Our technology

The non-profit

Mission two

Graduate multidimensionally poor households, starting with India’s waste-picking communities, into secure, dignified livelihoods that enable agency, safety and stability.

Visit Foundation Without®

Revenue from Without® funds the work of Foundation Without®. The trust built by Foundation Without® is what makes Without® possible.

04 · Our story

From one pair of sunglasses to a plant.

Each step started as something the industry had written off.

  1. Feb 2023

    Sunglasses from packets of chips

    The world’s first. The first batch sold out within a week, and more than 100 publications around the world covered it.

  2. 2025

    A bottle made from sachets

    We made the world’s first 100% recycled sachet bottle, and were one of four winners of L’Oréal’s 2025 Big Bang Beauty Tech Innovation Programme across SAPMENA.

  3. Oct 2025

    The Cradle opens

    Our first-of-a-kind demonstration plant in Pune, where science, product, manufacturing and growth work under one roof.

  4. May 2026

    Yarn from soiled textiles

    Recycled polyester made from soiled, mixed textile waste reached yarn-grade quality on our first attempt.

  5. Next

    More to come

    We are still going. Watch this space.

05 · Our long-term goal

Built in Pune. Made for the world.

Waste collected close to where it is thrown away, recovered nearby, and turned into materials worth more than the waste ever was. Three layers, working as one, then the same network, region by region, around the world.

Layer 1 · Close to the waste

Collection hubs

Small, local units where plastic waste is collected, washed, shredded and given its first sort, by people who are formally employed.

  • Collected close to where it is thrown away
  • Washed and shredded
  • A first sort before it travels

Layer 2 · Near the hubs

Recovery plants

VerdiCycle plants that extract the materials, depolymerise what can be depolymerised and sort everything by polymer.

  • Layers separated at up to 120°C, with water
  • PET taken back to its building blocks
  • Everything sent on as material, not waste

Layer 3 · Shared worldwide

Centres for science and making

Central labs that invent, upgrade and share the technology, so the same network can be built region by region around the world. Manufacturing units do the complex, large-scale work.

  • Research that keeps improving the process
  • Computational chemistry and AI to speed up experiments
  • Technology shared with partners around the world

Choose a layer, or tap the map.

What holds it together

Every kind of plastic

The ambition is to process all of it, not just the easy fraction.

Formalise and empower

The informal sector is formalised and empowered along the way.

Collaboration

Made Without® is an ingredient brand. We’re here to empower all manufacturers and brands to switch to sustainable materials.

Financially sustainable

Related entities that each pay their own way.

06 · How we work

What we believe, and how we work.

Three principles, three values and four habits. They are how we decide, especially when it is hard.

Our principles

  • Impact first

    We exist to solve systemic social and environmental problems, and that always comes first.

  • Good economics

    Markets and incentives work. An impact business should pay its own way, because donor dependency can be a crutch.

  • Long-term outlook

    We build for permanent progress: deep impact first, then scaling that depth over time.

Our values

  • Pursuing truth

    Self-aware, data-driven and compassionately honest. Fairness and transparency are not optional.

  • Realistically optimistic

    Optimism is a can-do mentality grounded in reality, not blind faith.

  • Working hard and smart

    Outcomes matter, and so do processes. Hours on the clock do not. We pair short-term impatience with long-term patience.

Our habits

  • Pace

    We want to compress years of research into one, without breaking things on the way.

  • Outcomes

    Our hours are flexible. What we do with them is not.

  • Explicit

    Nothing gets swept under the rug. We are our own biggest critics.

  • Grounded

    No task is too small or too big for any of us. We play to our strengths and keep an open mind.

Join us

Meet the people doing the work.

Scientists, engineers, operators and storytellers, most of them in Pune. Or talk to us about what you want to make.

Meet the team Talk to us