How 4 Teen Girls Turned a Lunch-Break Idea Into a Startup Fighting Plastic Waste

The classroom is buzzing with ideas. It’s an entrepreneurship camp, and students are grouped around desks, thinking like founders for the first time.

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The brief is simple but daunting: identify a real-world problem and build a business idea around it.

Among them are four teenagers from Gurukul The School in Ghaziabad. They listen, debate, discard ideas, and start again. As mentors move around the room, urging students to think beyond the obvious, one question begins to stand out: what problem do we see every day, and why hasn’t it been addressed yet?

There’s no business plan yet. No startup name. No clear solution. Just a growing instinct that sustainability — and the role plastic plays in their daily lives — deserves closer attention.

Two years later, that instinct would become ‘Pahal’ — a student-led sustainability movement and startup founded by four teenagers. Their goal: to prove that environmental responsibility doesn’t need a degree, a funding round, or permission.

Sometimes, it simply needs someone to notice and begin.

“We started Pahal as a movement because, in the beginning, we were still discovering how to build a business. So we began by replacing plastic within our school campus,” says 17-year-old Akshita Joshi, CMO of Pahal, to The Better India.

Small steps, real Impact: Changing the school canteen

For Akshita and her friends — Simran Arora (CEO)(17), Maanya Tyagi (CFO)(16), and Arshya Singh (COO)(16) — that early instinct from the camp began taking shape in 2023. What started as a classroom exercise soon spilled into conversations beyond it.

Somewhere between sessions and a lunch-break conversation, the first seed of Pahal was planted. When the group chose to explore sustainability, a simple observation stood out: the sheer frequency of plastic bags, from grocery runs to home deliveries.

“Plastic bags are almost everywhere, from grocery shopping to home deliveries. Starting with cotton tote bags felt like a simple, practical place to begin, and our mentor pushed us to expand the idea further,” adds Akshita.

The name Pahal came naturally — a Hindi word that means the first step. It reflected both their intent and their uncertainty. None of them fully knew how to run a business yet. But they knew they wanted to start somewhere.

Before selling even a single bag, Pahal took its first real step within familiar walls — their own school campus.

What strengthened their resolve was support close to home. Akshita and Arshya recall how their principal encouraged them to think beyond selling products and focus on creating meaningful change.

With his guidance, the group began by replacing plastic within the school itself, starting with the canteen.

“We drafted multiple proposals and kept approaching the school committee to replace plastic utensils. Our first big win came when the plastic spoons and forks were finally replaced with wooden ones,” Akshita shares.

Replacing plastic at the school canteen wasn’t headline-grabbing. But it was tangible, visible, and deeply affirming.

“That was the moment we realised this could actually work,” she says. “People were listening to us, not as students lecturing others, but as young problem-solvers.”

Teenagers, titles, and tough lessons

Encouraged by early wins within their school, Pahal soon moved beyond familiar ground. While the idea first emerged in 2023, it was officially incubated as a startup only this year.

Balancing schoolwork, board exams, and the realities of building a business was far from easy. “It came with a lot of meetings, crying sessions, and fights, but we managed,” Akshita says.

Launching their first eco-friendly tote bag brought fresh challenges — from fixing the right price point to negotiating with manufacturers who were hesitant to take teenage founders seriously.

“Most manufacturers want bulk orders of 5,000 units,” Akshita explains. “We were asking for 200 or 500. They laughed at us.”

Convincing adults, including their own parents, was another hurdle. With board exams approaching, concerns about academics were natural. Yet, support came through strongly.

“Whenever I talk to my father about something related to Pahal, he never redirects the conversation to studies. He understands that this is my passion project and helps me think through solutions, without ever spoon-feeding answers,” Akshita shares.

Through it all, the team learned one crucial lesson early on — confidence matters.

“If you don’t mention your age and speak confidently, people take you seriously,” she says. “The moment you hesitate, they take control of the deal.”

The day everything sold out

Armed with growing confidence and a product finally ready to test, Pahal faced its first real moment of truth.

Their big test came with a booth sale during a Parent-Teacher Meeting — secured after persistent follow-ups and a last-minute approval that arrived barely hours before setup. With confirmation coming in on Friday evening and the stall going live by Saturday morning, the team rushed to prepare.

Expecting to sell just 30–50 tote bags, they began with modest expectations. Parents kept coming back for more, phones rang at home for additional orders, and by the end of the day, all 100 bags were sold out.

Nervous yet exhilarated, the girls rushed to tell their principal, who could hardly believe it himself. The moment was equal parts anxiety and affirmation — a lesson reinforced earlier by their headmistress, who reminded them that they weren’t presenting as students, but as entrepreneurs, and pushed them to learn how to pitch like one.

Their social science teacher, Mr Pranav, speaks with pride about the students and their initiative, calling them leaders of the future.

“Their objective is truly noble, and if they are committed to such a cause at such a young age, they will certainly bring about change,” he says.

More than customers, they found believers

If the sell-out proved that the idea worked, what followed showed them why it mattered.

Among the most memorable moments was an unexpected one. A junior student, who had followed their journey for two years, insisted on buying a bag and asked all four founders to autograph it. He later posted it on Instagram, proudly showing it off across classrooms.

“That’s when it hit us,” Akshita says softly. “Someone didn’t just buy our product. They believed in us.”

For the girls, that autograph wasn’t about fame. It was about being seen as founders, not just students.

One customer, Sakshi from Hyderabad, discovered Pahal through a friend’s social media. She loved the cotton tote bag, but what truly caught her attention was that the initiative was run by teenagers.

“I’ve always cared about sustainability, but most alternatives are so boring. Their designs were quirky, and the intent was beautiful,” she says. Inspired by Pahal, Sakshi now uses the tote bag as her lunch bag at work, trying to reduce her own use of plastic.

Profit with a purpose

As orders grew, so did an unexpected question: what should they do with the money they were earning?

The tote bags were priced at Rs 299 — a reasonable amount that still felt ambitious for a student-led venture. When their first major profit crossed Rs 31,000, it was tempting to keep it. But the founders found themselves returning to the idea that started Pahal in the first place — as a movement, not just a business.

“Even though Pahal is a startup, our focus is on reinvesting whatever we earn into building something valuable and sustainable for the future,” says Akshita.

“We want to make India plastic-free, and this is our way of working towards eliminating single-use plastic.”

For the students, change begins with small, practical shifts — how they brush, carry their goods, or even the bottles they drink from. It’s not about lecturing others, but about making everyday choices that add up.

“This is the future, and young people need to be a part of it,” Pranav emphasises.

A teen lens on sustainability, with big plans for the future

For the founders of Pahal, sustainability isn’t about complex theories or technical jargon. It’s meant to feel real and relatable — especially for people their age — rooted in everyday choices rather than abstract ideas.

For Akshita, that clarity shapes how the team thinks about growth as well.

“If I had to explain it to someone my age, I’d say it’s like eating a chocolate — enjoying it, but saving enough for tomorrow and the day after. You don’t finish it all at once. That way, if a sibling or a friend comes along, you still have enough to share, while having enough for yourself too,” she says.

With reinvested earnings, Pahal is already looking ahead. The team is expanding its product line to include bamboo toothbrushes and three new cotton tote bag designs — each inspired by different personalities.

Whether you’re a free-spirited Geet from Jab We Met, a rebellious Apurva-type, or someone who prefers clean, minimal aesthetics, there’s a design meant to speak to you.

Beyond products, the founders imagine Pahal growing alongside their own college journeys over the next five years — with a small office, a larger team, and a wider reach. Further down the line, their ambitions stretch even further: setting up their own manufacturing unit and taking sustainability workshops to schools and college campuses across the country.

One step forward, many more to go

Pahal doesn’t claim to have solved plastic pollution. What it has done, however, is prove something quietly powerful: that age is not a prerequisite for impact.

For Simran, Akshita, Arshya, and Maanya, success isn’t a distant milestone. It shows up in small wins — a wooden spoon replacing plastic, a sold-out stall, and an autograph on a tote bag.

Sometimes, change doesn’t arrive with grand announcements. Sometimes, it begins with four teenagers, a lunch break, and the courage to take the first step — a pahal.

All images courtesy Akshita Joshi