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Five years ago, Swati Bedekar discovered that girls in rural India often drop out of school or take long leave after menstruating.

These girls usually use unsanitary methods during their monthly cycles, such as old rags or muddy leaves. Swati, who was teaching at a rural school in Gujarat at the time, found that not using sanitary napkins would not only hinder them from going to school, but also put them at risk of reproductive diseases.

This prompted her to focus on correcting menstrual hygiene in rural Gujarat through her non-profit organization Vatsalya Foundation. She configured semi-automatic machines and trained women to use them to make sanitary napkins at reasonable prices.

But it turned out that this was not enough.

Women and girls are still reluctant to use sanitary napkins-because once they have been used, it is difficult for them to get rid of them.

In 2012, Swati's husband Shyam Sunder Bedekar invented a simple, inexpensive and environmentally friendly machine that allows women to burn used sanitary napkins. He called it ashudinashak, and in Hindi, it literally means a destroyer who removes impurities.

"Unlike urban areas, there is no garbage movement system in rural India. In cities, every household collects garbage and transports it to a landfill. This makes it easier for women to push used napkins outside the house," Shyam, 54 years old, said Vadodara studied textile chemistry and engineering, she told Quartz.

"Here, it is difficult for women to dig it into the sand or burn it because the houses are very close and there are other social problems," he added. "So now they can burn it easily."

This makes it easier for the couple to persuade women to use sanitary napkins.

Ashudinashak is the first machine in India. It works like a traditional brick fireplace. However, women can basically use it to burn sanitary napkins instead of cooking.

"In my research, I found that the best way to discard sanitary napkins is to burn them," Shyam told Quartz. "So I designed a machine, keeping in mind that it should be easy to accept in rural India, it should be cheap and easy to operate."

The machine is made of pottery clay, which is a kind of clay ceramic commonly used by potters.

"You can see clay pots everywhere in the village, so it didn't even attract any attention," he said. "And it must be easy to use because it will be used by women who are mainly engaged in housework. They are all used to lighting a chulha (fireplace), and it is easy to make a fire in an incinerator."

ashudhinashak contains a collection chamber whose bottom is made of mesh and can be filled with up to 20 used sanitary napkins. Use hay or paper to light the fire through the holes located directly under the mesh. The hole also allows oxygen to pass through to maintain combustion.

The material can prevent the spread of any malodor and airborne bacterial diseases. The only residue is ashes, which can then be used as fertilizer and is easily soluble in water.

Although many waste experts say that burning sanitary napkins will cause toxic emissions, Shyam says his machine is safe for the environment.

“The average weight of a sanitary napkin is 6-8 grams. 85% of it is made of wood pulp, paper and other organic materials. The synthetic part is only the upper layer,” he said. "Moreover, in an incinerator, the temperature will not exceed 300 degrees Celsius. At that temperature, 15% of the polypropylene that exists will shrink. It will not convert it into any harmful substances. If the temperature exceeds 470 degrees Celsius, it will Into harmful substances."

In early March of this year, the innovator displayed the incinerator at a festival organized by the Rashtrapati Bhavan National Innovation Foundation in New Delhi.

"This helps to make more people and NGOs aware of this, so now I have sent this content to all parts of India. For this, we made the same product using concrete and steel so that I can easily Transport them on the train," he said.

From a few villages in Gujarat to now being sold in Assam, Rajasthan, Orissa and other Indian states, the demand for this simple machine is slowly picking up. Public schools and universities in the city also seem to be very interested.

"We have installed this incinerator in 8 to 10 high schools, and it has provided a great help. We plan to order more incinerators for universities," the head of the Social Entrepreneurship Center at Manipal University in Karnataka Harish Joshi told Down to Earth magazine.

In total, Shyam Sunder has installed more than 2,000 machines in different schools and colleges, each at a price of 2,000 rupees (30 US dollars).

“We have installed these incinerators in 109 girls’ boarding schools in Gujarat and we are very satisfied with their performance,” Darshana Suthar, gender officer of the group of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in Gandhinagar, told Down to the Ground magazine. Earlier, Suthar explained that when students tried to flush the napkins to dispose of them, the toilet would be blocked.

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