Ella Pad: Scraps to feminine hygiene products

Maintaining menstrual hygiene is a big social taboo. Women workers at the factories are remained absent and girls are being dropped out of the schools not having access to the sanitary napkins. On the other hand, growing garment industries is creating some social and environmental problem throwing away the factory scraps randomly for land filling, causing frequent floods clogging the drainage system. These highly flammable scraps are often burned at the roadside creating incineration.  Livelihood of poor working women is under threat not having basic access to the menstrual hygiene products and confining their mobilities.

            To solve all these challenges, we are proposing to make an ‘eco-friendly sanitary napkins reusing the garment scraps’. It will enhance women’s health and wellbeing as well as ensure girls’ better schooling. 

Maintaining menstrual hygiene is treated as women’s personal problem and not talked about in the public spaces. Access to the napkin is a acute problem. Poor women in Bangladesh, over 35 million women and girls, can hardly buy the expensive sanitary napkins from the market, which is treated as a luxurious stuff for them. Over 80% of women are using dirty rags to maintain their menstrual hygiene causing lot of infectious diseases. Not having access to the sanitary napkins, women in the garment factories are missing their salary of Taka 800 million each year.  The textile sector having over 5000 factories with 4 million workers mostly women, is losing about 210 million work days each year. Moreover, schools’ girls are getting dropped out schools and about 41% of dropped out are reason for not having access to the sanitary napkins.

On the other hand, the garment sector is throwing away about 2 million bales of waste or scraps every year that could be converted into valuable products like sanitary napkins. Reusing these scraps, thousands of tons of CO2 and millions of tons of water could be saved.  Women’s mobility could be increased and girls education could be ensured as well. 

Primarily, I learned the problem from my family. During the menstrual cycle, because of social taboo, my sister was often forced to stay with our livestock let alone go to school, take bath at the community pond and so. Later at the professional life, listening the horrifying stories of women workers inside the factories reminded my childhood memory and made me compelled to come up with a solution.

  To solve their needs, Ella Model is designed as affordable, available and accessible. Ella Pad is made of reusing the abandon type of scraps thrown away by the over 5000 large categories of ready made export garment (RMG) factories. Any women with some basic skills of running a simple sewing machines can make it just stitching together some scraps fabric having high absorbency into the materials selected for. Now women can use it to meet their requirements during their menstrual time. The product is so useful that it can now solve the problems of four (4) million factory women who will be taking full month salaries unlike the previous times. Similarly, 10 million school girls will attend at their schools and not getting dropped out as it was common earlier

It is proposed an unique model of Eco-friendly Low-cost Liquid Absorbent (ELLA) Pad, where poor women are making their own pads are using the garment/textile scraps. ELLA Pad is beyond a sanitary napkins, which is providing a complete solution for the factory women’s health and wellbeing through analysing their productivities. With necessary trainings to the women workers, garment/textile scraps are reused to make Ella Pad by the garment workers to use inside and outside the factory workers and their family members.

The key features of the Ella Model in terms of process and technologies9:

Workers to entrepreneurs: Ella model is creating entrepreneurs from working class women, which is first of its kind in the world history. The vision is to transform the women workers of the garment sector into small entrepreneurs, who will eventually alter the image of the nation in making green goods reusing the garment scraps.

Co-creation: Ella products are designed following the co-creation model as it is not pre-designed. Each of the products is designed based on the users’ needs and priorities. The co-creation model of the D-Lab of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is being followed in designing the Ella Pad.

Product variation: Ella pad is not confined within the limited product categories. It is regularly customized with the needs and demand of user groups. It can easily create the variation in its product design based on the context and cultural issues. Currently, Ella pad has more than 10 hygiene products including underwear, sanitary napkin with belt and without belt, different type of sanitary pad liners. Reusable and disposable both are produced but with more focus on reusable ones.

Ella and SDGs: EllMa is addressing all SDGs. It is not only saving the environment but also taking care of social needs and generating income. So, triple bottom line of economic, social and environment aspects are taken under consideration.

Appropriate technologies: Ella Pads are made (re)using the 100% local resources both the capital machineries and raw materials. The existing machineries and equipments of the garment factories are being used to make the high-end reusable sanitary towels. Ella pad also going to introduce smart phone and ledger technology to detect the primary diseases of women including UTI, yellow fever and so on.   

Ella Pad is marked as an innovative (Dew 2018:127) because of introducing 'Innovativeness', 'First', 'Useful' and 'Successful' (Innovativeness = First X Useful X Successful). Moreover, Ella Pas is most innovative because of being affordable, available and accessible. 

Different agencies and media covered their evaluation feedback with their independent studies. 

United Nations report on Ella Pad

The Daily Star covered Ella Pad

The Guardian, UK covered Ella Pad

Currently, we are serving over 50,000 women in the garment factories and at their communities. In next one year we will be serving over 100,000. In next five years, we will be addressing at least 10,000,000. Because of exponential market demand we have to cope up accordingly. 

By next year, Ella want to reach about 100,000 garment workers with Ella Pads and associated services. Each of these 100,000 female workers will support at least two more women and girls at their family or community and hence by next year, Ella will address the problems of 300,000 women altogether.

By next five year, Ella will support 10,00,000 directly and indirectly 30,00,000 women and girls. 

Regarding technical barriers, AI or IR 4.0 is threat for this. Women are expected to get replaced by machines in the growing textile factories. In extreme case, in next five year, if factories are wrapped up from Bangladesh then raw materials would challenging. 

Regarding legal issue, in next year, existing labor laws needs to be amended to add menstrual hygiene at the factories. Women, used to use traditional rags, are hesitating to receive new way of managing their hygiene. Because of being taboo, it is often difficult to talk about in the public spaces. 

To address this problems, women are encouraged to get engaged in alternative green jobs of making Ella products so that they can get employed once they lost factory jobs. 

To address the cultural barriers awareness creation programs are continued in different angles.

We have different type of staff members at office and at factories.  inlcuidng full timer 5, part timer 7, regular volunteers 4, regular mentors 5 and factory workers (part timer) over 100 at 4 different factories 

Our team has unique knowledge of the product, materials, culture, gender. We have a combination of young and senior people. Having people from diverge academic and professional  background, Ella has formed national and international experts group. 

Ella Alliance is formed last year. We have over 200 members, private sector, public sector, NGOs, academic and development partners. 

Our business model a hybrid type where both for-profit and not for profit are combined. Primarily we have targeted global leading apparel brands who are sourcing from Bangladesh from 5000 factories combindly.  a both B2B and B2C. Under our B2B, we are targeting global leading apparel brands as our prime customers as they will sell our products for their workers at the bottom of their supply chain. We are working both inside the factories with the collaboration of the factories. Ella is not only mere a product. We are also providing services through awareness trainings for both users group. Users’ data are collected and analyzed to compare pre and post data and how it is linked with the factory productivities. We are operating at the outside the factories as well. At outside we are operating as B2C model where garment/textile workers are trained to run an independent business. Their products would be channeled into local schools girls and community women. 

Under the ‘market intermediary model’ we have a targeted group of population as clients. We are raising both grants and equity funding as well. Ella is providing trainings to a small group of selected  women workers and developing them as small entrepreneurs. The products made by these women are sold to their factory owners and brands to support them first and their family members as well. 

Being a winner of the Tiger IT Foundation, I can overcome many of our challenges to influence the policy makers to remove regulatory barriers including amendment of Labor Law to include sanitary napkin issue, influence the lead apparel brands to add compliance for their sourcing factories to make mandatory supply of sanitary napkins for their workers. Getting in touch of seasoned mentors to take our project at the next level. 

In addition, getting budgetary support to carry out the cost to scale up our project from current 50,000 users to 100,000 by next year. 

Partnership with D-Lab of MIT for bringing new variation in products and services. I'm in touch with them and they are happy to be our technical partner.