Impact living: Rethinking Consumption in Urban Life | Ms. Soumya Kalluri | TEDxJNTU Hyderabad

When a routine clothing donation exposed the harsh truth of global textile waste, it sparked a personal transformation. Moving back to India, the speaker rewired her lifestyle delaying appliances, ditching a car, buying from local artisans, composting waste, and embracing quality over quantity.

What began as a handful of mindful choices became a 9-year journey of living lighter and more intentionally, ultimately giving rise to dwij, a social enterprise that upcycles discarded denim into circular, zero-waste products.

This talk challenges the modern urban consumer mindset and offers a refreshing idea: we don’t need to renounce comfort to create impact just rethink what we buy, how we live, and the footprint we leave behind.

Small sustainable choices. Big collective change. Ms. Soumya Kalluri is the founder of a social enterprise "dwij" . She has a Master's degree in Commercial Vehicle Technology from Germany. 'dwij' which means "second life" in Sanskrit was founded to address the humongous textile wastes that are landfilled or incinerated. dwij upcycles post-consumer jeans and post-industrial garments waste into accessories. The end-of-life of any Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to her is the most important phase, as this is the phase where material can be recovered or lost. She firmly believes that sustainability is not only about the environment and economy, but also about being fair to all the stakeholders in the process, including the customer. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx