Friday, April 06, 2018

Pencils that carry seeds script a success story - Eco-entrepreneur in Telangana uses recycled paper and natural raw material for the production



Imagine a pencil that could grow into a sapling after you discard it. Or a pencil made of old newspapers, actually water-resistant. Yes, they are real, and available.
G. Pramod Kumar, an MBA-turned entrepreneur set up Samiksha Enterprises and makes Rainbow Paper Pencils. The idea was born after a reflection on the philosophy of pencils, and a desire to start his own business. Help came from his cousin a machine manufacturer in Mumbai. Now his unit adds to the rhythmic click-clack in the weavers' colony at Nelapatla village here.
The pencils that Mr. Kumar makes have only eco-friendly, natural ingredients – gum, newsprint paper and lead. Moreover, the equipment used is as mundane as the ingredients - pencil roller, polisher and cutter.
Probably a first in Telangana, Mr. Kumar says, four 7-inch paper pencils can be produced from a centre-spread of a newspaper. And about 12 kg old newspapers, or a below 50 gsm (grams per square metre, indicating the lightness or heaviness of the paper) writing and printing paper could produce 2,400 pencils. That is the equivalent to a whole tree's production when chopped down. Rainbow Paper Pencils are priced between Rs. 5 and Rs. 10 each for a wide range including newspaper pencils, white and rainbow coloured pencils, velvet-finished and plantable seed pencils. Interestingly, plantable seed pencils - a first innovation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States - have a bio-degradable capsule filled with seeds at the tip, instead of a rubber. Kumar is replicating the idea. His idea of printing the newsprint with the seven rainbow colours, producing layered pigments when the pencil is sharpened, is his registered Trade Mark.
Supported by the Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), the year-old start-up also encourages local women SHGs (Self Help Groups) to earn a decent income by being part of it. "Using a flocking machine, four pencils can be finished in velvet in 30 seconds. At 60 paise per pencil, women can earn up to Rs. 9,000 a month," he says.

Source: THE HINDU-25th March,2018
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/pencils-that-carry-seeds-script-a-success-story/article23345524.ece