PositiveNewsCorner

Article by Aditee Lad based on inputs by Meeta

Devyani Maladkar, IIT Goa, and Aishwarya Agarwal, IIT Bombay, invented an inexpensive and affordable device to clean reusable sanitary pads and reduce biomedical waste. The Indian Institute of Technology students have also filed a patent for the device called “Cleanse right”, which according to them will cost around Rs 1,500. 

A standard disposable sanitary pad is made of non-biodegradable plastic. An average women creates about 125 kg of such biomedical waste in her lifetime. This waste is dumped in large landfills. It takes 500-800 years of a synthetic sanitary pads to decompose. 

This newly designed device does not require electricity to operate and has a pedal operated plungers that move up and down inside of a water filled chamber. “The plungers squeeze out menstrual blood from cloth pads while rinsing them with water. The device is designed to be inexpensive. It can also be used to wash other hygiene concerned garments like baby clothes,” said Devyani Maladkar, a student of IIT-Goa.

The duo came up with the product at “Invent@IITGN”, a six-week annual summer programme at IIT-Gandhinagar. The programme, in its second year, focuses on inventing, based on a similar programme in the US called “Invention Factory”.