CNN —
It’s time for lunch in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad and locals are crowding at Prahalad Tiffin Point, a popular roadside eatery serving regional staples like dosa and idli.
In the shade of the awning, customers eat standing up. They’re perhaps unaware that the paper plates they’re using are made of palm leaves.
The plates are produced by Bollant Industries, a local company that makes eco-friendly and disposable products and packaging from the fallen leaves of areca, a species of palm, as well as recycled paper.
“I call myself a waste person, because I really love waste,” CEO Srikanth Bolla says. “I want to recycle all the waste that I can in this world”
Now aged 30, Bolla, who has been blind since birth, founded the company in 2012 to pioneer sustainability and to provide jobs for people with disabilities. His company currently employs around 400 people, a quarter of whom have disabilities, Bolla says. “Our core vision is to employ as many people as possible who are at the margins of society,” Bolla says.
