Khushboo Gandhi was raised to live in a sustainable manner. As a child, she saved little ribbons from gifts and was fascinated to see the outside of a product more than the product itself.
When she started her professional career, she often wondered about various ways to live sustainably and create a larger impact on the planet.
In 2018, she went on to pursue her master's in material development in Barcelona, Spain, to formally educate herself in circular economy and design thinking.
In 2021, she formally launched ‘Go Do Good’ along with her brother Ronak Gandhi and her husband Chanakya Medh. The Pune-based startup develops sustainable packaging.
Shedding light on the problems in the packaging industry, she says, “Ink printed on the packaging is toxic, and contains heavy metal additives, synthetic chemicals, and paraffin waxes.”
“Similarly, people fail to notice layers of plastic lamination on packaging and the synthetic glue used in the sticker industry. These are the areas we strived to work on,” she says.
In an innovative way, Khushboo has repurposed agro-waste to find alternatives for single-use plastic.
She utilised heavy coconut coir that offers excellent cushioning properties for fragile products, acting as a direct replacement for bubble wrap.
She uses tamarind seeds to make water-based glue and is replacing the toxic ink with eco-friendly ink that has been developed from seaweed and natural pigments.
“These materials allow everything that is on the package and inside the package to be 100 percent biodegradable and compostable at home,” she says.
So far, Khushboo has replaced up to 10 tonnes of single-use plastic, printed 1.5 lakh products with eco-friendly inks, replaced 7 tonnes of bubble wrap with biodegradable coir, and repurposed 5 tonnes of agro-waste.
“The impact that we see makes me very positive about the work we do and the amount of change it can bring to society,” she remarks.