Journalism of Courage
At a jaggery processing unit on the outskirts of Pune, a startup from the city has set up a small installation that traps dense black smoke, extracts particulate matter and releases clean air into the surroundings. “We were able to convert more than 500 kg of polluted air to powder form in 10-12 days. As Maharashtra is a sugarcane belt, there are a lot of sugarcane industries and jaggery units, which is the main cause of pollution in rural India,” says Irfan Pathan, co-founder and CEO of Pi Green Innovations, the startup which is conducting this pilot project. Another prototype, with the same aim, is being tested at a crematorium in Bengaluru.
Pollution is one of the drawbacks of development. But there are efforts to ensure ambient air as well. Pi Green Innovations has become one of the main agents to combat air pollution through its filterless technology. The new technology stops pollution at source, such as heavy vehicles, diesel gensets, jaggery units, industrial boilers and crematoriums. The company has deployed this technology in a product called Carbon Cutter which claims to cut down over 90 per cent of the particulate matter emitted from diesel genesis and heavy vehicles.
The filterless technology was created by a physics nerd called Rizwan Shaikh, who lived in a small town near Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra border, and had used an old wooden TV box with his father’s scooter to demonstrate that smoke from a vehicle could be turned into powder. Pi Green’s CEO Irfan Pathan first met Shaikh at a burger joint in Kalyani Nagar. Shaikh drew up a chart for his product on a tissue paper. This was in 2016 when the stubble burning and haze in Delhi was in the news. “I was intrigued by Shaikh’s idea that this could bring down the smoke,” says Pathan. “He calculated and said that the entire cost would come to Rs 17-20 lakh and I committed,” he adds. Today, the filterless technology has been patented in more than 30 countries and is powering Pi Green Innovations’ efforts to have sustainable development.
Another product, Repair, was piloted in Delhi but is yet to be commercialised. “Repair sucks in surrounding polluted air, captures and conglomerates ultra-fine particulate matter (PM2.5 onwards), stores it into powder form and releases up to 80 per cent cleaner air. It can be installed at locations with a high density of population and vehicular movement, as well as at the places with maximum footfall,” says a statement from the company. Research and development is being carried out to use the soot collected from different sources to make ink, paint and other new products.
Pi Green Innovations was incorporated as a company in 2019 and is on its way to earning a revenue of Rs 100 crore in the current financial year — thanks to the several important tie-ups with bigwig manufacturers which have built a pan-India presence over 35-40 years and will take Carbon Cutter to at least 85 per cent of the market. The revenue of Pi Green Innovations in FY22 was Rs 12 crore and it has made 150 installations of Carbon Cutter till now, mostly in Tamil Nadu.
“Typically, in a country like India, concern for the environment is not a priority. Our engagement with corporates and the governments, over the past two years, has shown us that there has been a welcome change in attitude. We have seen policies and engagements happening from the government’s side in terms of identifying problems and coming up with solutions or regulations for these,” said Shantanu Sonaikar, another co-founder.
