Metta Hastakala: The challenging business of turning banners to bags

Rushka Sthapit worked for CWIN, a leading child rights NGO,  between 2012 and 2014 as an environmental officer. Besides her regular work, she also wanted to do something extra to prove herself as an ‘environmental officer’. She wanted to devise a unique project that could also contribute to the environment.

“Therefore, my colleagues and I there developed the idea to make bags out of banners that organisations use for their events,” Sthapit remembers, “CWIN also accepted the idea and launched a new programme called ‘Banners to Bags’.”

Sthapit left the organisation in 2014, earned a master’s in business administration from the Kathmandu University and started working for different employers. But, over these years, she could not forget her brainchild ‘Banners to Bags’. Hence, she decided to establish a private company with the same idea. This is how Metta Hastakala was born around five months ago.

Metta Hastakala is a startup that collects used banners made of vynil, and produces bags useful for grocery shopping among others. The company ultimately wants to reduce the use of non-reusable polythene plastic bags for daily shopping, but it faces challenges galore.