How a young leader is building the circular economy

National Observer

28-07-2025

These in-their-own-words pieces are told to Patricia Lane and co-edited with input from the interviewee for the purpose of brevity.
Abhiudai Mishra (Abhi) is growing the circular economy. This 24 year old Vancouverite is the co-founder and operations director of Mosa Technologies which, in its first two years, has transformed more than 40,000 glass bottles into beautifully upcycled glasses, platters and candles. Mosa also offers workshops for students of all ages to learn about and participate in the circular economy, where they themselves do the upcycling. Abhi is a Starfish Canada 2025 Top 25 Environmentalist Under 25 award winner.
Tell us about your project
My co-founder Prishita Agarwal and I believe one of the best ways to learn about the circular economy is to engage in it directly. Once you work in the industry, purchase a beautiful affordable upcycled product or make one yourself, you know without a doubt that sustainability can be affordable, beautiful and easy and popular. Our team of ten employees have decent work supplying more than 60 retail stores across Canada. We have engaged 800 students from kindergarten to university in learning about circularity as they contribute to it.
We collect bottles and glass fragments from restaurants, bars and landfills. We work with designers and use technology adapted from ceramic cutting to make new things from old.
How did you get into this work?
I was a student at UBC's Sauder School of Business and had a house party. As I was cleaning up my apartment one of the empty bottles broke. It frustrated me that recycling glass shards is awkward. Prishita and I researched how to do that and encountered the idea of transforming the economy so nothing is wasted and everything is repurposed. We decided to explore how to use waste glass. We bought a small glass cutter online and began experimenting. The first product took us weeks of work but eventually we had enough for a booth at a UBC student event. We sold out in 3 hours! Now just 2 years later we have hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue and are finding new markets every day.
Abhi Mishra, co-founder of Mosa Technologies, has over the past two years played a key role in diverting more than 40,000 glass bottles from waste bins, instead converting them into beautifully upcycled glasses, platters and candles.
What makes it hard?
We have a lot of success placing our products with small independent stores like Cultured Coast in Nanaimo, Caribou Gifts in Toronto and Makers Vancouver but it has proved challenging to persuade large retailers to carry them. We are working to remind them it is good for their brand to carry beautiful sustainable products that reach consumers with their meaning.
What keeps you awake at night?
Is it going to be enough? Is there more we could be doing to spread these concepts more rapidly?
What gives you hope?
Last week two young women approached me saying they had been inspired by a talk I gave recently and asked me to mentor them with their idea about reducing fast fashion. This reminded me we never know when we will have impact.
How did the way you were raised affect you?
My family has been one of the noble families in the Indian city of Udaipur for 500 years. Udaiper is sometimes called the Venice of India with canals, rivers and lakes and I was raised to understand stewarding this beautiful place is a responsibility. My Grade One teacher explained carpooling was a way to cut air pollution and I went door knocking to our neighbours with the idea. My parents viewed this as a natural response to new information. I have always known I would work to protect the people and places we love. That houseparty showed me my current path.
What would you like to say to other young people?
Start. Don't wait for all the stars to align or until you know everything. That will never happen anyway and you will have lost valuable time and experience. Don't wait for funding either. We didn't have any. We just got going. Find a friend or colleague or mentor and just start.
What about older readers?
Look around you for people who are working to protect our land and water and offer your experience and money if you can. We don't have time to make the same mistakes you made so help us avoid them.