The Better India · 8 days ago

Iit Grad’s Biodegradable Thermocol Prevents Stubble Burning

When a child paints the sky grey instead of blue - mirroring Delhi's smog-choked reality after harvest season - an engineer finds his calling. Arpit Dhupar transformed his dismay into Dharaksha Ecosystems, a venture that converts the very crop stubble farmers burn into biodegradable packaging material using mushroom mycelium. The innovation addresses two crises at once: the toxic haze that blankets Northern India each year and the silent accumulation of thermocol in landfills and oceans. "We shouldn't live in a world where we have to explain to kids that the sky should be painted blue," Dhupar reflects, articulating what drives him to pay farmers for their waste and grow a material that takes seven days to cultivate - slower than thermocol's instant production, but infinitely kinder to the planet. His satisfaction is quiet and clear: "I started the venture with the aim of making the skies blue."