Meet Zero Waste Club, our Student Start-up of the Year

Two school friends from London have won Enterprise Nation's Student Start-up of the Year competition with their plastic-free online grocery store.

Co-founders Pawan Saunya and Rishi Gupta run Zero Waste Club which sells everything from bio-degradable bamboo toothbrushes, to organic pasta, beans, cereals and baking ingredients, all presented and delivered in recycled, compostable paper packaging. For every delivery dispatched, the firm plants a new tree.

This week the pair picked up the Student Start-up of the Year award, a national competition that is a collaboration Enterprise Nation and youth charity The Enterprise Trust. It seeks to highlight and promote the promising businesses set up by young entrepreneurs, often whilst still studying.

Pawan said: "I studied world development at A-level and just could not believe the appalling harm that plastics are doing to the environment and what that's storing up for future generations.

"We looked around and there was a lot of talk about it, but no solutions. There was nothing offering consumers any convenient alternative to buying products wrapped in flexible plastics and packaging that isn't accepted by UK councils for recycling.

"We decided to not just sit and watch the world burn.  We decided to try to do something about it ourselves."

Rishi is in the last year of his natural sciences degree, while vegan Pawan decided to defer university to work on the business. Both still live at home with their parents.

The friends met at Lampton Academy, Isleworth. Rishi moved to Tiffin School in Kingston-upon-Thames to do A-levels, while Pawan went to Richmond-upon-Thames College, where he got two A*s and an A.

Together they raised the £5,000 they needed to start-up last year by working on vegan markets. That covered buying the templated website from Squarespace, which took Pawan 200 hours to build from scratch, and their first order of stock.

The company is already on-track to turn over £100,000 in its first year.

"Plastics don't leave the environment," Pawan said.

"They break down into invisible micro fibres and we already know these get into the eco system and harm wildlife.  They are in our water and it's highly likely that we humans have micro plastics in our systems too. It could have something to do, for example, of the increase in cancers. We just don't know."

In the future, the pair want to expand the company to design and make sustainable, organic, biodegradable products that are functional and beautiful.

As part of the prize, the co-founders won £2,500 to put towards the business and a year's free office space in London supplied by The Office Group.

Zero Waste Club were one of more than 200 student-led firms that entered the competition from around the UK.  The list was whittled down to the final five, which went out the public vote.

The other four were the mental health social project Happiness Bootcamp, third world education campaign Wazi, digital memory bank Memento and accessible door handle firm The Unity Door.

Emma Jones, founder of Enterprise Nation, who graduated in law and Japanese from Cardiff University, said: "We were bowled over by the incredibly high standard of the student entrepreneurs this initiative uncovered in its first year, spread right across Britain's universities and colleges and covering every conceivable sector.

"From mental health bootcamps to fashion to campaigns fighting third world poverty, the businesses impressed us with their their commercial acumen as well as their energetic approach and fresh, new ideas.

"Zero Waste Club not only stood out because it's bang on in terms of its ambition to fight for a plastic-free world, but because these two young men had clear vision and loads of entrepreneurial stamina.  They also understood that to make their idea work, they must be prepared to roll up their sleeves and work damn hard.

"This year has again uncovered young people with an appetite to run businesses that bring in the cash - while changing the world.  It's wonderful to see, and we must all do everything we can to support them."

Last year's competition uncovered a genius scientific invention that can create water from thin air. The Imperial College graduates behind ThinAir pumped their prize money into their company and have now been awarded a place on the Climate-KIC Accelerator Programme.

Helen Booth, COO at The Enterprise Trust, said: "It's really exciting to learn about all these inspiring young businesses and how they want to make a difference. We're delighted to be able to have a hand in celebrating and supporting Britain's growing army of young entrepreneurs.

"The Student Start-up of the Year helps deliver the important message that young people can start-up excellent businesses and that they are doing it in style and considerable number, even while studying."

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