Gadwal student makes biopots using groundnut shells to replace plastic bags

Hyderabad: A desire to use locally available resources prompted A Srija, an innovator from Gadwal, to make biopots from a unique dough made of groundnut shells. These are biodegradable and are an effective alternative to black plastic bags used in nurseries for saplings. T Works, the State-supported prototyping facility, helped her with a custom-built machine […]

Hyderabad: A desire to use locally available resources prompted A Srija, an innovator from Gadwal, to make biopots from a unique dough made of groundnut shells. These are biodegradable and are an effective alternative to black plastic bags used in nurseries for saplings.

T Works, the State-supported prototyping facility, helped her with a custom-built machine to manufacture bio-degradable pots, called biopots, in large numbers. The Biopress (version ‘4T’), was designed and developed by T-Works to scale up Srija’s innovative biopot, which has already received recognition and awards from several quarters for its employment and environment sustainability potential including from the Telangana State Innovation Council (TSIC) and CSIR.

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“Srija is one of the first innovators under our Rural Innovation Development Programme. Under the programme, we take recognised and vetted innovations to market. In Srija’s case, we worked closely with her and her mentor Augustien to design and fabricate a machine capable of churning out the biopots in numbers. Their input was critical to design a machine that can be used in a village setting, for example by self-help groups. This creates employment in rural areas and bring to life innovations by the locals themselves,” says T-Works CEO Sujai Karampuri.

Making the biopot manually using steel glasses as moulds has inherent drawbacks. The shape, size, weight, and structural properties change beyond allowable limits from one piece to another. To overcome this, T Works helped Srija research and experiment in a structured manner to identify the right ratios of ingredients for the dough and optimal shape for pots. T Works is also assisting Srija in patenting her unique biopot formulation.

“TSIC extended support to Srija who we scouted from our Intinta Innovator 2020 edition. As the next step, we will leverage Telangana’s flagship initiative ‘Telangana ku Haritha Haram’ and other channels to roll the product into market. We will also aim at skilling the SHG communities for large-scale production”, said Dr. Shanta Thoutam, Chief Innovation Officer, Government of Telangana.

One Biopress 4T machine is capable of producing 6,000 biopots per month per shift. A set of a few machines deployed on site can produce several tens of thousands of such pots. The modular design allows for swappable moulds for different sized planters. The Biopress design can also be modified if needed to produce up to 50,000 pots per month.