Ajinkya Dhariya, a company from Pune, was inspired to create PadCare Labs, an ecosystem that offers an endways solution for sanitary waste disposal after observing ragpickers separating soiled diapers and sanitary napkins from other garbage by means of their bare hands. Each year, around 3.37 lakh tonnes of waste from sanitary napkins and newborn diapers are created in India, where fewer than 50% of women use them.
While at work on an ISRO project for a Pune-based contractor, Dhariya watched how ragpickers were trained to treat hygienic garbage. He created PadCare containers for bathrooms so that spent sanitary waste may possibly be collected and kept for up to 30 days without developing a smell or bacteria.
With 6,000 PadCare bins deployed without charge at 250 clients’ workplaces throughout India, the PadCare X is the first system of its kind to use 5D technology for sanitary napkin disposal and recycling. At the two central processing facilities in Pune, 1.5 tonnes of pads are processed daily.
PadCare Labs produces stationery and decorative goods. An Indian firm called PadCare Labs wants to improve the socioeconomic management of menstruation hygiene by offering micro-enterprise units in Tier II and Tier III towns. Organisations like Niti Aayog, the Dept. of Biotech, and the Swachh Bharat initiative have given it government money.
In 2020, PadCare Labs received pre-seed investment from Venture Centre, a technology business accelerator, through BIRAC’s LEAP Fund for an undisclosed sum. In a seed fundraising round this year, Lavni Ventures, Social Alpha, 3i Partners, Spectrum Impact, and Rainmatter contributed Rs 5 crore.
The expansion of operations in Tier I cities such as Pune, Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad as well as Tier II cities like Ahmedabad, Indore, Kochi, and Nagpur are all part of PadCare Lab’s plan, which also calls for the deployment of material recovery facilities in additional Indian cities. It also intends to expand internationally by looking into markets in the UK, Singapore, and Canada.
