Manipur man creates brooms from plastic bottles to combat pollution

Usham Krishna Singh a Manipur based innovator has introduced a new technique of recycling used plastic water bottles into brooms with an aim to fight against severe environmental hazards caused due to pollution.

The 58-year-old has succeeded in generating income by manufacturing brooms carved out of disposable plastic water bottles.

Singh, who is a farmer by profession, has his home located close to a local garbage dumping site where a large number of plastic bottles are dumped every day. It was this regular sight which prompted him to find a way in which he could reuse the disposed plastic bottles productively.

Singh told ANI, "I started making brooms out of discarded bottles, so that I could contribute to saving the environment at least to some extent. This has also given employment to many people. I took a lot of hard work, patience and ample techniques and procedures to churn out brooms from plastic bottles."

Elaborating upon the procedure of making the broom, he stated that for manufacturing one broom, 30 bottles of one-litre capacity are required. File and horse-knife are usually used to slice the plastic bottles to a very thin piece in the form of threads. The plastic threads are made rigid by applying hot air-gun mostly used in repairing mobile phones while the other required materials are made of bamboo."

Emphasising on the teething problems that occurred when he began with this business, Singh said, "Initially only two or three brooms were manufactured in a day, but gradually with the use of an electric motor, we are producing more brooms in a day."

At present 15 people are working under Singh and are engaged in making brooms. However, in order to increase the production of brooms, he is planning to increase manpower to 20-25.

Lenin, a worker who works with Singh said, "We started making these with an aim to protect the environment from plastics. As of now, we are able to make 20 to 30 brooms a day. At present stage, the demand is more and we are not in a position to meet the supply, due to lack of human resources. If the government provides us financial assistance, we will be able to grow our unit and make it the art of the state. We have made 300 brooms till date"

As of now Singh has invested around Rs 20,000 for the machinery (motors) along with Rs 2000 for perishable items like nails, wires etc. The highest investment was of Rs. 10, 000 for the motor and other items like bamboos.

Singh and his team make two kinds of brooms one by the mineral bottles and the other with cold drink plastic bottles.