BENI – Recycled Handicrafts from Nepal

Photos by Chin Cabrido

The initiative of Beni creates beautiful and practical products from different trash material. Beni, president of this program, trains women from remote villages in central Nepal (Lapa, Jarlang, Tipling, Shertung villages) to create useful products from waste material. The ladies collect, sort, wash and dry material that is to be found at street, school playgrounds, cinemas and long the mountain trails of Nepal. They use for example potato chips bags, chocolate, biscuit or noodle wrappings or big cotton bags from rice. This material is treated first and then transformed into original and practical products such as bags, door mats, trays, etc. Based on their own designs, Beni and her team use the waste to produce a collection of fashionable and functional products giving a “second life” to rubbish.

Beni shop is found inside Northfield Cafe, Thamel, Kathmandu, Nepal.