Clothing and textile industries release 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gasses every year. The fashion industry produces about 53 million tonnes of fiber every year. Of which, 70% ends up in garbage dumps, or is incinerated. In the future, production of fiber is expected to reach 160 million tonnes. 

Finding quick sustainable solutions is key. 

Namya Parikh (21), a third-year student of Pearl Academy’s School of Design, Delhi, has innovated a biomaterial in her home kitchen that could be a game-changer in the fashion industry. 

The material is made using dried lemon and orange peels and bonded together with agar agar powder. The material is versatile and can be used for making buttons and dry packaging material. 

A fourth-year student at Pearl Academy, pursuing industrial design, she discovered the horrific environmental consequences of carbon footprints and greenhouse gas emissions. In August 2020, what started as a lockdown project soon turned out to be an alternative solution for non-degradable gifting papers. 

Inspiration through experimentation

In one of her classes a professor briefed Namya about carbon footprints, the cradle-to-cradle concept, and what people are doing at home to create biodegradable and sustainable materials. He encouraged the students to try making their own materials at home for a good cause. 

Following a lot of testing and error, Namya came up with two materials. One was wrapping paper, and the other was biodegradable accessories. 

At first, she experimented working with ingredients such as eggshells, vegetable or banana peels and binding them with cornstarch or potato starch. But they were not feasible. The end product, she says, was either too thick, too brittle or not flexible enough to mold. 

Finally, she settled on using citrus peels of lemon and orange. She used agar agar, a plant-based gelatin, as the binding agent and after three weeks of trial and error, she perfected the formula and made a flexible yet sturdy material. 

Namya says that the material, when it is in a wet form, can be poured into molds to make different shapes. 

How does she make it? 

The process of making the bio sheets involved grinding and drying the peels under the sun and then binding them with agar-agar. The mix was spread out as thin sheets and air-dried for several hours. This can be used for wrapping gifts. 

While packing gifts, Namya did not need to use sellotape or glue. She just brushed a little water on the bio sheet and the ends would stick together. By tweaking the formula a little, Namya made a mix that was sturdier in texture and could be molded into small buttons. 

To check its biodegradability, she buried the material in an open ground near her home. After overnight rains, the packaging dissolved completely. Since it was made using lemon and orange peels, Namya claims it would be beneficial to improve soil fertility too.