BD scientists develop machine to make eco-friendly sanitary pads

Farhana Sultana, an assistant scientist at icddr,b, has won the grand prize for her proposed innovation -- developing a machine to produce jute cellulose-based disposable sanitary pads for sustainable menstrual health.

In collaboration with Dr Mubarak Ahmed Khan, scientific advisor at Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation, Ms Sultana manually developed and piloted the jute cellulose-based disposable pad, according to a statement released by icddr,b on its official Facebook page. 

It is an alternative solution for menstrual health and hygiene for women and girls in Bangladesh. 

Jute cellulose is a new material and currently, there is no machine available in the country to manufacture such pads which is a barrier to scalability.

Farhana Sultana won the fourth Annual Innovations Pitch Competition, organized by the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), on “A Healthier Global Community Addressing the Twin Challenges of Pandemic Preparedness and Impact of Climate Change.”

She has been awarded $5,000 and she will be a judge for the fifth Annual Innovations Pitch Competition to be held in 2022.

With the money won from the award, Ms Sultana said she would conduct an industrial trial for mass production, develop a business plan, and explore options for further scale-up and waste management. 

The industrial trial will also assess the compatibility, compressibility and stretchability of the pad, and conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis with other commercially available disposable sanitary pads.