In 2020, Malavika Byju, then a student at the National Institute of Design in Gandhinagar, decided to focus on tapioca waste for her academic research. The apparel design student observed the amount of waste produced from Kerala’s beloved root vegetable.
“It was COVID time. And I saw the large amount of wastewater produced from tapioca, even at home, just from cooking. The water is rich in starch. So I decided to collect samples,” she says. Malavika found that for every 1 litre of wastewater, approximately 86mg of soluble starch can be recovered and repurposed.
This started her research. She further investigated the tapioca ecosystem across household, industrial, and agricultural domains. “In households, 70% consume 1–2 kg of tapioca, with 80% of waste discarded. In the industrial sector, wastewater from tapioca processing plants provides an untapped resource for starch recovery.”
Meanwhile, farmers were facing plummeting demand and selling prices (`30/kg and falling), resulting in the gradual replacement of tapioca cultivation with more profitable crops.
Under the guidance of Dr Ketankumar Vadodaria of NID, she decided to develop a material out of the starchy wastewater. “I was able to develop a biopolymer film,” she explains. She had also received support from the NID-Ford Foundation Grant and the National Design Business Incubator under Gujarat’s Student Start-Up Innovation Policy.
Soon, she thought about the application of her findings. “I realised after multiple hospital visits how much plastic is in medical waste. Among them were ECG electrodes, which are non-biodegradable and non-recyclable,” she says.
During her two months of hospital visits, she also realised women were having uncomfortable moments during ECGs, as they had to remove their hospital gowns. That made her think of expanding her research.
As her study progressed, she developed biodegradable ECG electrodes as well as hospital gowns made of tapioca starch, which come integrated with the ECG sensors.
The design has now acquired a Design Registration Certificate from the Indian Patent Office. “The research took around two and a half years. One more year to get the patent,” she smiles.
“My focus now remains the medical field and incorporating smart garments and solutions,” she asserts.