Walking down a beach in Hawaii about two years ago, Shaan Arora, a fourth-year Northeastern University student studying computer science and business, came across a woman selling bracelets.
Out of curiosity, he asked her how they were made. In response, the woman said that every morning she goes out to the beach, picks up plastic debris that washes ashore and uses those materials to produce her bracelets.
Her story inspired Arora to buy bracelets for himself and his entire family.
“And now when I wear that bracelet or my mom wears that bracelet, we think of that woman, and we think of her story, and we think of what she does every single morning to produce these bracelets,” says Arora, a co-founder of Alia. “For us, that’s very impactful, and the bracelet has so much meaning to me.”
However, the woman told Arora she was unsuccessful in…
