 Replacement of single-use plastic with environment-friendly recyclable products is the need of the hour. An innovator named Neelam Bhairi and her teammate Anirudh Deshpande have come up with an innovative solution in which they have developed bio-based, biodegradable advanced material from potential agro-waste after harvesting of crop. This material can be used to produce different kinds of products like cotton earbuds, disposable cutlery and other medical applications. Underable Prime Minister Sree Narendra Modi gave a clarion call to phase out single-use plastic. The government has also taken effective measures to phase out identified single-use plastics item which have low utility and high adverse environmental impact. To achieve this goal, startup like Vivek Indi Green Private Limited is working with a team of passionate youth and industries experts who developed the material to convert essential single-use plastic into cold, compostable, recyclable and biodegradable products. In today's edition of Chainmaker, we have with us Neelam and Anirudh from Vivek Indi Green Private Limited. Welcome Neelam and Anirudh. Thank you so much sir for giving this opportunity and this platform. Thank you very much sir for inviting us for this particular opportunity and we are looking forward. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Neelam, please introduce yourself and your team and tell us about your innovation. Vivek Indi Green Private Limited is a chauvinistic and patriotic team. We are not passionately working towards the environmental sustainability but also we are working on the green technological solution. Our innovation is we are working on bio-based biodegradable advanced material that is bio-man's and we are producing it from agriculture waste which can be used to produce different kinds of single-use plastic products like earbuds, particle waves, disposal bags etc. Neelam you are working on a very important aspect of you know especially the single-use plastic. What inspired you to create such an innovation? India being an agricultural country we have actually I can say we have a blessing to produce a variety of crops and give food to all over the world. Since this after this production and harvesting of crop there are immense amount of agriculture waste has been jetted and it has no solution of it right now. Farmers are burning it and it creating an immense air pollution on another level the plastic waste. So this single-use plastic waste we all know that worlds are facing immense problem about it. If I talk about the figures India is creating around 26,000 tons of plastic waste every day and there is no solution for it. So with these two major problems we have come up with a better solution for the sustainability that is the bio-man's which is bio-based biodegradable advanced material. Since we are producing it from agriculture waste to create the single-use plastic products. So what is the unique selling proposition of your product? Our product is 100% bio-based since we are producing it from agriculture waste it is 100% cold compostable. Compostable is basically we did not require any kind of conditions to degrade it if we just dispose of into the environment it will degrade completely and it will enhance the soil quality. And since this product is not only a solution for the single-use plastic product but it also giving the farmers to have some another source of income as well. Because we know that farmers face a lot of problems during their journey so it is another source of income for them as well. What is the problem that you are solving or addressing through this innovation and what is the impact it is creating? That's a really great question. Being an agricultural country as Neelam mentioned that we are producing immense amount of agricultural waste and that is the one challenge. And another challenge is the plastic waste. As Neelam rightly said that 26,000 tons of plastic waste is getting generated on daily basis and out of which only 40-50% of the waste is getting collected and getting disposed of. Other 40-50% waste is getting disposed of anything like on the earth surface. So we came up with the solution of developing the product from the agricultural waste, utilization of agricultural waste and which can be used for the replacement of the single-use plastic. As we know everyone knows that Modi government has banned single-use plastic products in the market. I will give a small example of that. You know that we are using earbuds to clean our ears. I can show you some of those which are with me currently. You can see here how you are using it. You are taking one earbud and putting it into one ear and another ear and then you are disposing off into the environment. So the middle stick of the earbud, you can take any company, Johnson & Johnson, Tulips, many companies, they are made up of polypropylene. If you dispose it off, it is very difficult to pick up from the environment. You just use our product, you dispose it off into the environment, it will degrade in 30 days, it will enhance the soil quality and it will not create any further pollution on the environment. So this impact of the single-use plastic products which are getting disposed off into the environment, we are reducing that impact and we are developing new products for the market. Also, we can see another product which is the medical bib. So everything right now is made up of polypropylene, polyethylene and we are replacing with that our Biomans. I can show you one product right now. This is a bib, medical bib. If you go to any dentist or any specialist, they will put this bib on your chest or on your neck to check yourself. So this is made up of polypropylene in the market which is available. If you dispose of that as a medical waste, that against greater pollution problem because of the plastic. This is biodegradable bib which you can use it and you can dispose it off in a medical waste, ash content is very low. If you look at another product which I can show you of this bag, these gift bags are made up of polypropylene, polyethylene or paper. To make a bag of this paper as well, you need to cut the trees. We are also cutting the trees but we are using the agricultural waste which is of no use. These type of single use plastic products which we have developed, we have developed the earbuds as well. I can show you here right now. Earbuds, linears, disposable cutlery, a chai cake up job use cutlery. Everything we can, whatever the single use plastic products, we can replace it with that with our material. Great. Neelam, you have participated in national innovation contest and you were the one of the winner. Can you please share your experience in participating in the national innovation contest? Neelam? Sure sir. I have a great experience in the national boot camps. It was a two day boot camp. We have actually learned what is the particularly what entrepreneurship there because before that we have moved into the innovation part or the research part because since I am a science background. So entrepreneurship, what is very new to me, but due to the courses or the short boot camp which MIC have introduced to us. I actually got to learn more about the entrepreneurship, how the business works, what is marketing, finance and get to more know about it. Also, since they gave us opportunity to different delegates to showcase our products. So we actually got many feedback as well as networking for that. So it was a great experience for me to showcase my product and be there for the NIC. Neelam, apart from the funding grant from the MIC and AICT, how is your participation in national innovation contest helped you in your entrepreneurial journey so far? Apart from the funding part, we actually got to learn more about myself as well that how I should represent my product and what product actually is creating the impact on the customers. Since there are a number of people who have visited and have seen our products and appreciate in even also given us the suggestions and advice to just get a more R&D on it also for the customer aspect as well. I also got a reality check that yeah, the solution which I am working, it is really a solution. That's why they are want to know more about it and want to get us related. There are a set of networking I got from there as well. And also I am proud to say that I actually got the opportunity from that to be showcase myself and India in the international level through Canada India acceleration program which is also got from the MIC AICT. Yes, so have you received any financial support from other sources as well? Neelam? No sir, we didn't got any support other than MIC. We have bootstrapped it and further further development of our product. Great, so not only MIC and AICT is helping you to work on your dream project but also you are utilizing this platform to strengthen and in fact continuously work on your product to serve this nation. So my next question with Anirudh that how do you ensure that your product meet quality standards and how cost effective it is for the users? Okay, that's great. I'll take the example of for that. Okay, if you look at this year but okay, so if you take the standard year but which are available in the market of Johnson & Johnson or Tulips that will cost you around one rupee for one year. But for our year but sorry, not cost, we are saying price for price of our year but is around one rupee 10 paisa, possibly 10 to 20 paisa more than that. Okay, since we are developing this material from the agricultural base, it's a bio based, bio degradable. What we are doing is we are taking the premium on that on our USP. Okay, so those though the rates are quite competitive. If you look at the bib as well, the cost of bib is around 3 to 4 rupees, our cost is around 4.5 rupees to 5 rupees. So it's not it's it's quite competitive and for the regarding the quality check, of course, whatever the for the medical purpose we can sterilize our material in a very good manner. It got sterilized, it is not getting damaged during the process of anything. We can recycle it as well if you if you can collect it and you reuse it. So the quality standards regarding the biodegradability, we also done that some quality test as the tensile strength, biodegradability strength, soil quality check with the various laboratories here. So we are getting very good results out of it, we are getting very good, what we can say the optimistic results out of it. And since that that's how we are taking up it ahead for from the laboratory scale to the right now to the pilot plant manufacturing. So I'm also curious to know the challenges you are facing in your startup journey and how you are trying to overcome. Yeah, that's the challenges are many. Since this is a particularly a very new development. Okay, we have done, for example, we have done around more than thousands of experiments to develop this material in R&D laboratories. For that we have one research and laboratory here in Bide Foundation in Pune. The director of Bide Foundation helped us to work on the particular product. So the challenge is to understand the quality of the material raw material which we need it to process it, to develop the formulation, to optimize the formulation. It was really very challenging. Many times we got frustrated like anything because the material is getting teared up like anything it is not giving the it is got soggy sometimes. Okay, but we keep on passionately working that no we need to address this challenge and we need to work on this. So we came up with the solution and we formulate it very nicely from almost more than two years to three years we worked on the you know product development and we came up to this level. Another hurdle which we face or I know we can say we are working on that is for the development of the product or the finished product we don't have the machinery. So every machines we need to develop from the scratch we have developed design the machine special purpose machines for this processing. And yes, we can say right now we are in a position to setting up the pilot plant for of capacity around 500 kg to one ton per day. So that's how we came up with the journey of you know the from the R&D scale to pilot plant scale we can say. Yes, Neelam startup journey is not easy. You need continuous mentorship and support in terms of finance in terms of product promotion and everything. So to whom you used to consult for the mentoring support and how they are helping you in your entrepreneurial journey. So for the R&D purpose, since my partner has mentioned Dr. Meenal Joshi from B-ray Foundation, she actually helped us a lot during that because she has around 20 to 30 years of experience in the R&D. So we actually got that mentorship from her and we are blessed to have her as a mentor, a first mentor for our innovation. And the second credit I want to give to MIC and our innovation hub that is the RIC where because they have actually give us immense amount of courses, learning training courses, which actually helped us to more know about what is entrepreneurship, how business work. For example, if I go for the finance, if I'm getting any problem, they just give us a training course or a person whom they basically believe that they can help us. So this kind of help in my early stages is actually a blessing for me to get opportunity and get connected with these wonderful people in my life. Great. Nilam, if you have to give one advice to someone who is considering to start their own venture like you, what would that be? Because recently we have launched Yukti Innovation Challenge also, so your advice will be very helpful for them. I believe today's youth is, I can say, maybe a very cranky or pinky. They can't just settle in one particular place. They want to move here and there. But if you broaden your vision, I think not India, but the world is working on the sustainability development goals as SDGs. There are around 18 SDGs which the world is working. So if we can just try to get the solutions which are on more on sustainability or environment because as we can see that today now the climate is getting worse and worse. We can see raining every month before we are only getting around 4-5 months. But we can now see that the rain almost every month we can see the rain on earth. So I think people should more work on the environmental and sustainability kind of goals. Also they should be very passionate towards that thing. What they are actually doing that they should know that, yeah, I am working on the right path and I will work towards my best. And will continue to work because many times when we see the fall on our journey or we see that it's not working, it's not working. So just take a small break. Just process the thing why it is getting wrong. Try to find the answer of why. When you will be going to get the answer of why, you will just easily get cope up with it and further work on it. I think it would be a life lesson for everyone. Not in the startup or the entrepreneur journey but I think the life lesson that we should always know the meaning of why. Why I am doing this, how I can do that, why it is not working. If we just find that why I think we will conquer everything in our one. It's very important and especially focusing on SDG is the need of the hour. Anurad, can you share your experience in terms of learnings for our budding entrepreneurs? Basically for me as Nilam rightly said, we need to be not only passionate, we need to be patriotic as well. See, I am working on this particular challenge of environmental sustainability but we need to look at the future as well. When our kids will come, they will start their journey. They should be get good amount of fresh water or air or pollution free environment as well. If we didn't put our intellectuals on all these aspects of coming up with the green technological solutions then who? Who others will work on that? So for me it's a very patriotic team which we are working on right now on these particular challenges. Another thing is, I do understand for everybody's life, it's not easy to get the goal directly and to work on that. You need to find out the purpose of your existence and you need to understand why you are doing this. And then it will come up, we know the solution ultimately to you, that is what I am looking forward. It's very important. So Nilam, what plans do you have for the future of the business and can you share your vision with us, especially in terms of your product, in terms of the company? So Vivek Indian team believes that it is not possible for us to replenish at a place that we impose the pollution upon it. So in the green field that it is our responsibility to take care of it. And with this responsibility, we are working on the green technological solutions. Like I said earlier, the biomass is one of the solution which is solving the two major problems that is agriculture waste disposal and the plastic pollution. And the further planning we have is we are working on the pilot setup to commercialize our product and get our product into the market and know how it helps the environment and people and can get a shift towards the life, towards the sustainability as we have around 30 to 40 years back. We shifted our life into the, I think I can say the sustainability, more sustainability to the plastic world. So now rather than more shift towards back to the sustainability. So this is our vision and plan for the futures. Thank you so much, Neelam and Anirudh for joining us today and sharing our product, your work, your vision and as well as your challenges and also sharing piece of advice for our budding entrepreneurs. Keep inspiring us. Thank you again. Thank you so much sir for inviting us to this platform. I am very happy and proud to say that we, I got the opportunity to get collaborate with MIC and I am proud to say that now I am a, I feel to that I am a MIC family as well as for the innovation and start up is considered. Thank you. Thank you very much Abhishek sir for giving us opportunity to showcase ourselves on this particular platform. Thank you MIC team, you know, for this interview arranging and giving us immense support to become an entrepreneur. It's not so easy. Thank you very much for the same. Thank you so much. Keep inspiring. Thank you. Thank you sir. It's the need of the hour to engage with the youth to spread awareness about the plastic pollution. Also to encourage committed youth like Neelam to think innovative to develop solution to mitigate plastic pollution and develop alternatives to single use plastics. With this we conclude today's episode. We will meet with other change makers in next episode. Namaskar. Jai Hind.