Pune-based startup PadCare founded by 25-year-old engineering graduate Ajinkya Dahiya is playing the role of a game-changer in sustainable menstrual hygiene by coming up with the world’s first smokeless and safe sanitary pad disposal.
“Did you know that it takes 800 years for a single sanitary napkin to decompose? Did you know 12 billion pads are used annually by women? Did you know a single pad can release some 380kg of carbon in the atmosphere? Did you know that 98% of pad waste ends up in water bodies and landfills? I and my team have worked to reduce the adverse impact on the environment by developing the world’s first smokeless sanitary napkin disposal and recycling solution to solve the unhygienic, pollution-causing, and silent issue of sanitary napkin disposal at the source. This works on the principle of the chemo-mechanical method that disinfects and disintegrates a used sanitary napkin into sterilised cellulose-plastic which can be used for paver blocks, composite material, and into the packaging industry,” says Ajinkya.
A team of nine people have come together from different backgrounds such as engineering, psychology, science, design, and management for this project. PadCare has a centralised processing unit that can handle up to 1500 pads in a day and provides 5D’s- disinfection, deodorisation, decolourisation, disintegration, and deactivation of super absorbent polymer. This collection bin can store up to 30 pads for three to four weeks without any odour and bacterial growth.
On Saturday business tycoon Anand Mahindra applauded the works of these youngsters on Twitter.