Written by Sara Raghav
In the aftermath of COVID-19, the streets of Bengaluru were choked with garbage. Prasad Lingawar, a young entrepreneur who had arrived in the city for work, could not ignore the waste piling up around him. “It was a big trigger for me. I am passionate about sustainability and wanted to do my bit,” he recalls. Lingawar confided in his roommate and college friend, Nachiketa Acharya, and together they resolved to act.
Over the next few years, Lingawar and Acharya built a system to reuse and recycle discarded cloth, preventing it from contaminating the land and the underground water table. They now tackle Bengaluru’s waste through their new venture, NoKasa (kasa translates to ‘garbage’ in Kannada), a platform that allows residents to schedule doorstep pickups for unwanted textiles.
A software coder and marketing professional, Lingawar says he and Acharya have diverted more than 60,000 kg of textile waste from landfills.
The birth of NoKasa
An engineering graduate from Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune, Lingawar moved to Bengaluru for work. He launched his own company, QuodeIt, which helps recruiters efficiently screen technical talent. Another firm later acquired the venture. By 2018, Lingawar was part of communities that cleaned lakes and footpaths in the city.
It was during months of field research into Bengaluru’s waste ecosystem in early 2025 that Lingawar and Acharya stumbled upon a gap. They ran a scrap collection drive across Bengaluru and found that cloth was donated by at least four out of 10 people. While residents could easily find collectors for paper, plastic or metal scrap, one question kept coming up: “Who will take our old clothes?”
“The problem was that there was no one to collect textile waste. This gave birth to NoKasa,” he says.
Lingawar and Acharya started collecting garment waste, offering Rs 10 per kg of wearable clothes donated. Teaming up with city-based NGO Hasiru Dala, NoKasa started collecting cloth waste by installing smart bins across residential societies in Bengaluru. Each bin had a 100 kg capacity. Once it reached 75-80 per cent capacity, they would receive an alert to clear the bin.
With 8-10 employees, NoKasa staff collect textile waste from houses. Once the clothes are picked, they are transported to a warehouse, where they are segregated. Lingawar explains that the clothes are divided into three categories. Under category A are garments that are still wearable. “It might be hard to believe, but more than 50,000 such A-category clothes are sold in KR Market. It is a major source of revenue for us,” he says.
Category B includes clothes with minor issues that can be refurbished. NoKasa generally donates these clothes to those in need.
Under Category C, damaged garments that cannot be reused are processed through an NGO named Sahaas. “Recycling includes upcycling, where clothes are turned into something directly usable like bags, and downcycling, where they are trashed and sent to manufacture things like mattress fillings, noise cancellation in headphones, and cushions,” he says.
Textile waste, a silent killer
Lingawar notes that public awareness of the dangers posed by discarded clothes is limited. “When people think about waste, they think about plastic. Nobody thinks about clothes,” he says. Describing discarded clothing as a “silent killer”, Lingawar explains that many modern garments, owing to the sharp rise of fast fashion, are made from blended synthetic fibres and treated with chemical dyes. Once dumped in landfills, these materials break down over time, releasing microplastics and chemicals into the soil and water.
“Though there is no official study, in my one and a half years of experience in this space, I can say that Bengaluru approximately generates at least 300 tonnes of cloth waste every month,” he says.
When asked how his parents reacted to his plan to start NoKasa, Lingawar says, “Both my parents are doctors, and they tried to convince me not to take this up. Most parents would say the same to a child who already has a steady job. But they saw how passionate I was and were eventually convinced due to my experience of starting a company.”
The road ahead
NoKasa staff collect textile waste from houses in Bengaluru. Once the clothes are picked, they are transported to a warehouse, where they are segregated.
NoKasa, which has warehouses at HAL and Jigani, is bootstrapped. “We had saved some money. Initially, when the startup was fresh, I was working at a private firm. This May, I quit my job and started working full time at NoKasa,” says Lingawar.
He says making the service accessible has been NoKasa’s biggest hurdle. Operating with just two collection vehicles and a team of seven, NoKasa currently covers designated collection zones across Bengaluru, with limited slots that often fill up within a day. “A lot of people want to dispose of their clothes responsibly. The challenge is that we are still a small company, so scaling up quickly isn’t easy,” he says.
Despite these constraints, the startup has diverted more than 60 tonnes of textile waste from landfills since it began operations in 2025. On the first weekend of August alone, the team collected over three tonnes of discarded clothing from households across the city.
Looking ahead, his goal is to make the platform available to more people across Bengaluru before expanding to cities such as Hyderabad and Chennai.
Lingawar and Acharya also plan to set up refurbishment centres to wash, iron, dye, and repair clothes, making them fit for reuse. While resale currently happens offline, the NoKasa founders are looking to expand online.
Sara Raghav is an intern with The Indian Express.
Prasad Lingawar (left) says he and Nachiket Acharya (right) have diverted more than 60,000 kg of textile waste from landfills. 
NoKasa staff collect textile waste from houses in Bengaluru. Once the clothes are picked, they are transported to a warehouse, where they are segregated.
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