Putting plastic to work

What do you do with plastic waste that blocks drainage systems in flood-prone areas? One young innovator in Assam turns it into life jackets. WWF-India is helping Anusweta Deb scale up her dream. 

Asley Wilkinson
Senior Programme Officer – Youth & Citizen Engagement, WWF-India 

Assam is home to one of the largest river systems in the world. Brahmaputra and its many tributaries are integral to shaping the state’s ecology and culture. But Assam is also one of the most flood-prone states in India. These natural disasters have affected over five million people, wreaked havoc on the local biodiversity and caused catastrophic soil erosion. While the flooding of the Brahmaputra is an annual event, there’s a human-made culprit in this disaster ecosystem too: plastic. 


Anusweta Deb (centre) leads a training workshop in Alappuzha, Kerala

Rivers are common conduits for plastic waste making its way to the ocean. Evidence shows that during floods, mismanaged plastic waste accumulates on land and riverbanks, in vegetation and within estuaries. This waste has severe negative impact on the environment, biodiversity, livelihoods and health. Moreover, as climate change makes rainfall erratic, plastic pollution blocks natural drainage systems and aggravates the situation, making floods more intense. In fact, 218 million people are at a high risk of plastic-aggravated flooding around the world, according to a report released last year by Tearfund UK. 

Anusweta Deb witnessed the devastating effects of floods on her community from a young age. A science student hailing from the small district of Hailakandi in Assam, she was keen to learn the science behind the environmental disasters that plagued her homeland. At the same time, she also noticed the improper management and disposal of plastic waste on streets and riverbanks. When Deb asked her teacher what she could do to tackle the problem, the teacher told her, “We can’t stop floods. We can only save lives by using life jackets.” But an average life jacket cost anywhere between INR 500 and INR 2,000. Such prohibitive pricing often discouraged locals from buying life jackets, even in crises. This is when Deb identified a critical need: an affordable, sustainable life jacket. She began testing common items that floated in water: bamboo, coconut husk, plastic bottles... Deb stumbled upon an idea. Having gathered plastic rice sacks from the community, she worked with her mother—a proficient tailor—to cut up the sacks and stitch them into a vest, designing pockets on both sides to be filled with empty PET bottles. It took them a few attempts but eventually the mother-daughter duo fashioned a sustainable life jacket by repurposing the most commonly available plastic waste items. Deb worked with her teacher to devise a matrix and test the product in water bodies. With six empty PET bottles, the life jacket could keep a 60-70 kg man afloat. 

WWF-India took note of Deb’s innovation and envisioned a much larger impact. It helped Deb join UNEP’s Tide Turners Plastic Challenge as a youth champion. As a part of this programme, the innovator led a two-day skilling workshop in January for 80 women of Paradip village in Odisha, training them to make life jackets from plastic rice sacks and PET bottles. Much like Deb’s hometown, Paradip experiences frequent floods. In April, Deb led a similar workshop for 25 women in Alappuzha, Kerala. 

The Tide Turners Plastic Challenge is a global movement that encourages youth to fight plastics on a local level—with WWF-India as an implementation partner in the country. Innovations like that of Anusweta Deb prove how simple observations can sometimes lead to effective solutions for major environmental issues. Deb has produced over 2,000 life jackets so far and distributed them for free in her community. She also aspires to upskill more young women in flood-prone areas. “My vision is to repurpose plastic waste into life-saving jackets, ensuring both environmental sustainability and flood resilience, while empowering communities to navigate natural disasters safely,” says the young innovator. 

“My vision is to repurpose plastic waste into life-saving jackets, ensuring environmental sustainability and flood resilience, while empowering communities to navigate natural disasters safely.” 

- Anusweta Deb