In 2021, amid Patna’s COVID lockdown, 15-year-old Dwishojoyee Banerjee handed 40 handmade newspaper bags to a vegetable vendor, betting they could replace single-use plastic. That earnest first step, though the bags proved too fragile for market conditions, ignited The Soft Movement, her purpose-driven organization that has since reached 51 cities, engaged thousands of volunteers, educated vendors, and replaced over 500,000 plastic bags with free upcycled alternatives.
Roots in School and Policy Gaps
Dwishojoyee first grasped sustainability in school, but by grade 10, frustration set in over inaction. “I think it was in school that I first got to know about sustainability and why it is important,” she shared. “However, one thing that I noticed very early on was the fact that there’s a lot of talk around sustainability, but there’s not a lot of action that has been taken.”
India’s 2020 single-use plastic ban, reinforced in 2022, faltered for small vendors like vegetable and flower sellers, who prioritized costs amid 3.4 million tons of annual plastic waste (only 30% recycled). Embryo-ed in 2020 and launched in 2021, The Soft Move’s Paper Bag Project upcycles discarded newspapers into free, durable alternatives, empowering communities through hands-on engagement.​
Lessons from Fragile Beginnings: Scaling with Volunteers
“Honestly, at first, I thought that if I make a certain number of paper bags and give it for free to vegetable vendors, it would lead to change,” she recalled. “However, as a 15-year-old, I made 40 bags and it led me to really think more deeply on simplifying solutions for these people.”
She rallied volunteers via Instagram and school networks in volunteering-scarce Patna. Now, workshops span schools in 51 cities, from Kashmir to Bengaluru, Rajasthan to Telangana. Students craft and deliver bags, learning vendors’ realities. More than 10k volunteer base engaged so far thrives on 3-6 month terms, balancing certificates with genuine impact.
In conversation with The Logical Indian, Dwishojoyee noted: “It’s not difficult to find a volunteer. It’s always difficult to retain a volunteer over a longer period of time. It has to be a two-way process.”
Vendors’ Real Priorities: Cost Over Climate Talks
Generational vendors, often twice her age, eyed the young founder warily, suspecting media or raids that forced fleeting compliance. “When there’s a young person who wants to do something about the world, I think people want to pay attention. But only the elitist class,” she observed.
These vendors shared nostalgic experiences of sustainability before the word was trendy: “Earlier there used to be jholas,” they told her, recalling how fathers and grandfathers used sturdy cloth “jhola” bags or paper envelopes for veggies. Plastic surged post-1990s liberalization and industrialization, not forced, but embraced for its unbeatable cheapness, versatility, and hassle-free nature. Separate polythene pouches kept produce sorted without bulky cloth bags; consumers demanded them not just for shopping, but as free dustbin liners or household storers, hoarding stacks at home. This shift made life easier, sidelining traditional reusables despite their eco-roots.
Economics trumps the environment: “Their challenge was more monetary than sustainable because as a vegetable vendor, he has to run his own household and that is his priority.” Free bags provided an immediate, no-cost hook, proving lucrative since alternatives were pricier. Now, The Soft Move trains the vendors’ wives, often at home, to craft these newspaper bags themselves, turning waste into a skill. “We initially started with the distribution of paper bags, but now we also train women who are generally the wives of these vegetable vendors to make these paper bags by themselves. That it becomes a self-sustaining model,” she explains. Community drives amplify this: volunteers perform street plays (nukkad nataks) and skits at to grab passersby’s attention, distributing free bags to customers while spreading awareness on plastic’s harms and reusables’ benefits, targeting buyers who demand polythene and hoard it for household use.
Empowering Women, Innovating Forward
Wives shared village sustainability nostalgia, building trust slowly. As an Ashoka Young Changemaker, BeVisioneers-Mercedes Benz Fellow, TEDx speaker, and partner with UNICEF, World Economic Forum, and NITI Aayog, the 20-year-old Delhi University student scales thoughtfully. The Soft Move’s gentle model has inspired other NGOs.
Looking ahead, Dwishojoyee plans to expand women’s training programs for greater economic empowerment while launching a dedicated research wing to develop versatile, weather-resistant alternatives to single-use plastic, addressing current limitations like paper bags’ vulnerability to rain. “We want to now, to have a research wing which can come up with different alternatives to single-use plastic which is as versatile,” she says.
In conversation with The Logical Indian, she urged: “We need to simplify the idea of change making so that it becomes something that everybody can be a part of.” This approach has already replaced over 500,000 plastic bags, impacting 15,000+ people across India.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
At The Logical Indian, we celebrate stories like Dwishojoyee Banerjee’s that shatter the myth of “resume activism.” Her simple, collaborative model, from Patna’s bustling streets to a national footprint, shows how grassroots action truly transforms lives, one newspaper bag at a time.
If you’d like us to feature your story, please write to us at csr@5w1h.media
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