Why did my company have a reason to exist?

In the October of 2016, my friend and I were in Chandni Chowk, to buy some material for our project. I had been there before to parathe wali Gali n all but something was different this time. We had just started walking on that busy street and it was too much to handle. There was a thick smog around us. It was very difficult to breathe. Our eyes were burning and watering. Our throats were choking up. It was very difficult to even walk like that. We almost gave up the work to go back.

I am the COO and one of the three co-founders of Kriya Labs, a startup that’s ambitious enough to think we can solve the smog problem.

The Problem

On our way back, my friend and I started talking and understanding what was causing all this smog. We found out that apart from vehicular pollution which is more than 40% of the problem, there is another major source.

Did you know how much rice straw is burnt in the states of Haryana and Punjab?

20 million tonnes every year

and the next question in our heads was why?

We went up to Punjab, we had talks with the farmers and we realised that it was not like they enjoyed burning the crop residue. Before the smoke reaches Delhi, it goes through their homes affecting their families as well. They can spend money and collect the rice straw but there is no use for it and they will not get any money for it.

The Solution

The solution seemed obvious. Why not use this agro-waste to make something useful? Coincidently, the project we were working on in IIT Delhi at that time, was of paper recycling. A machine that would take waste paper as input and give out paper cups. We thought if we were somehow able to make paper from the agro-waste we could use it to make cups and plate bowls. So we decided to start a company together. Our project transformed and we started working towards a different problem using the things we had already learnt. We worked around the chemistry, did experiments in the labs of IIT and then one day we made roughly 10 grams of paper pulp from rice straw. We put it in the machine we made for recycling paper and we got the first cup made from rice straw.

Then it took us 2 years to be able to finally achieve sufficient quality that it could be called a product. We felt really happy about it but also knew that it was just the beginning.

Another part of the problem we realised was the sheer volume of agro-waste being generated. Even with a capital investment of 100 crores in a large paper-making unit, we can only utilise 100 tonnes per day i.e. 30,000 tonnes per year. That is only .15% of problems solved. We need a better model than that.

We designed the process we had developed in such a way that it is economical and eco-friendly at tiny scales as well. We can hence go for a decentralised system of production. A small unit of 5TPD can utilise 2000 tonnes of rice straw which is roughly the agro-waste generated by one or two villages. We can set up multiple such units in collaboration with the local rural people. We can provide the technology to these micro-entrepreneurs who have a background in agriculture. These units will help them convert their locally generated agro-waste into products. We will then connect them to the market.

The next big challenge we will face in solving this dreadful problem is finding a market for such a volume of products that we can make. We currently have a small pilot unit running that can produce up to 10kg of paper pulp in one day. We have already done the industrial trial for the tableware you see. We are currently making changes to our process to be able to make packing material.

Moral of the Story

In very simple words a pollutant is basically waste generated as a result of something useful but has no use itself. If we can somehow use every bit of waste generated for something useful, we can achieve zero pollution. That’s exactly what we are trying to do. We are taking the waste from one industry, agriculture and turning it into a product for the paper industry.

This is high time for mankind to start being responsible for their actions in the past and present. Otherwise, there won’t be a future. We found a gruesome problem and solving it has become our goal in life and there are so many more just waiting to be picked up. I want to urge you all to give this special thought to how can you contribute. It can be something that you love to do, something that you already do or something that you are capable of doing, just add the environment to it, and we shall live in a better future.