00:00 Sowing the seeds of change.
00:05 Siva Balan, who comes from the village of Ayyampaliyam in Tamil Nadu, came up with the
00:10 idea of creating a green pen.
00:14 I am a qualified mechanical engineer.
00:16 I grew up in a remote village very close to nature.
00:19 In the cities, deforestation as well as plastic usage rates are high.
00:23 I wanted to find a solution, even if it's small scale.
00:27 So I designed what I call a paper pen.
00:31 Biodegradable and made of recycled paper.
00:35 All the pens also contain capsules filled with seeds.
00:38 Seeds that flourish in local soil and don't need much looking after.
00:43 People were skeptical that plants can actually grow from this pen.
00:47 So I threw a few of the used pens in the ground in front of my office.
00:51 And local school students did the same.
00:53 They have grown into plants.
00:55 Many people said they enjoyed seeing them thrive.
01:00 The paper pens help cut plastic usage too.
01:03 In India, up to 2,400 million plastic pens are sold each year.
01:08 And more than 90% of them do not get recycled, according to the National Green Tribunal.
01:14 The young entrepreneur also hopes his pens can make a difference in his community.
01:23 I knew production couldn't be done by one individual alone.
01:27 So I got a group of unemployed women together in my village and trained them.
01:33 They have benefited from the daily income.
01:35 We do training programs in nearby villages too.
01:51 We can earn an income while taking care of our families too.
01:54 It's much more convenient than a normal job.
01:56 We can combine this work with our family lives.
02:00 Siva Balan and his team make around 800 to 1,000 pens a day, according to demand.
02:07 Their main customers are schools and colleges.
02:09 The pens cost 5 rupees each.
02:15 We take the paper and down the middle we paste a line of gum and place the ink refill there.
02:20 After that, we fold it and put it into a paper rolling machine.
02:26 Once the pen is dry, we add a capsule at the back and fill it with seeds.
02:30 Then we paste it with gum again and add a cap and packaging.
02:35 The pens are made with a machine originally designed to manufacture firecrackers.
02:40 Siva Balan found a way to convert the model and he now aims to make a smaller version
02:44 to sell.
02:45 He also wants to refine his pens and use organic material to make ink refills too.
02:51 My challenge here is to make this product 100% organic.
02:54 We haven't been able to do that yet.
02:57 0.5% of it is plastic.
03:00 We are trying to improve that with R&D.
03:03 We are experimenting with things like peacock feathers, which were used to write in ancient
03:08 times.
03:09 As an individual, I cannot bring changes just with my paper pen.
03:20 Everyone needs to take responsibility and try to use such products to cut plastic usage.
03:25 Small changes all add up.
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