Eco-friendly seed germination pots developed by students’ venture
EichhoTech, a student startup based in SD College, Alappuzha has come up with a novel range of eco-friendly products made of locally available resources as a replacement for harmful plastic and PVC based nursery trays and pots.
We know that every year lakhs of saplings are being planted across Kerala, but it also often generates a huge volume of plastic waste. A team of researchers and students led by G. Nagendra Prabhu, Associate Professor and Principal Investigator of the Centre for Research on Aquatic Resources at SD College launched eco-friendly nursery/seed germination pots using leaves such as coconut palm leaf, leaf of jackfruit, wild jack, arecanut palm fronds as well as pulp from the harmful aquatic weed water hyacinth.
Inspiration
The team members say the inspiration for this innovation came from a report which appeared in The Hindu in June 2018, which had highlighted the issue of plastic waste generated by the ‘sapling planting’ activities. “Our research team had earlier developed biodegradable water hyacinth pulp-based nursery pots as part of our initiatives on value addition of aquatic weeds. The current innovation reinforces our commitment to nature conservation through a decentralised people participatory model. The idea is to utilise locally available natural materials, human resources and combine it with the traditional wisdom of our ancestors,” Mr. Prabhu says.
Adopted
He says the concept of using leaves of jackfruit tree for preparation of ‘cups’ or ‘baskets’ for making a traditional delicacy (Hittu, steamed idli batter in jackfruit leaf cups or baskets) of the Gowda Saraswath Brahmin Community (Konkanis) was adopted by the startup team in developing similar baskets for a different purpose altogether.
“These can be produced by unskilled workers and children and has a huge market in the country and abroad due to the increased demand for green products,” Mr. Prabhu says.
Anoop Kumar V., CEO, EichhoTech, says they aim to provide training on this innovation to rural communities, NGOs, students and entrepreneurs and will offer a ‘buy-back’ scheme for the products.
After the launch of nursery/seed germination pots, the team is now developing bigger sapling pots for use in social forestry and similar programmes.
Hareekrishna, Arya S., Nivedita Prabhu and Lakshmi K. Babu are other members of EichhoTech. They have recently secured financial assistance from the Government of Kerala under the Young Innovators Programme of the Kerala Development and Innovation Strategic Council, (K-DISC) for their work on the value addition of aquatic weeds like water hyacinth.
Source: Article in The Hindu online newspaper
