iansu
Indore, January 15th
Waste paper counts as junk, but an Indian woman has successfully used waste paper to start a company worth tens of millions of dollars in Scotland.
A native of Delhi, Poonam Gupta graduated with honors in Economics from Reddy Sri Ram College and later earned an MBA. She created a new market for waste paper.
She was recently in Indore, Madhya Pradesh to participate in the Pravasi Bharthiya Diva competition.
Poonham tied the knot in 2002 with Puneet, who was working in the medical field in Scotland. Her original plan was to get a job in Scotland, but it never materialized.
Then she decided to do something new and began researching the same.
This is because higher quality paper is produced there and using scrap paper to produce that type of paper would be an expensive strategy.
Poonam recalled that the idea came to her when she had found nowhere to be successful, and based on that, she focused on reusing scrap paper. I noticed it and walked in that direction.
She contacted an Italian company and began trying to sell what the company considered “garbage”—things that were useless but took up space and cost money to dump.
Poonam’s first deal was Rs 40,000, then gradually more work, and in 2004 he registered a company in Scotland named PG Papers.
She then made efforts to purchase waste paper from several companies in Italy, Finland and the United States. She offered the company money in exchange for waste, gaining their interest. She got her first job at an Italian company.
Since then, her work has become known in many countries, and she has also tried her hand at other fields. Today, she owns nine of her companies and does business in over 60 countries.
Her company’s network exceeds Rs 100 crore.
When asked about the inspiration for the idea, she said that people in India usually cling to the old and can’t get rid of them easily.
Indians, she said, reuse things and don’t reject them, which inspired her.
Other countries cannot recycle waste paper into better quality paper, but paper made from waste paper in India is of better quality.
Poonam said these possibilities gave her the opportunity to step into the field and reach the level she is today.
She added that she is researching ways to reuse fabric scraps.