Pune: Menstrual hygiene management start-up PadCare Labs on Monday announced its association with the State Bank of India to provide hygienic sanitary napkin disposal facility to the 60 thousand female staff and more than 10 lakh customers of the bank.
PadCare Labs has developed the world's first decentralised smokeless sanitary napkin disposal and recycling system. The State Bank of India has taken a step towards providing safe, accessible, and eco-friendly sanitary napkin disposal and recycling solution to their 60,000+ female staff and 1 million daily customers.
The SBI will be the first establishment in the banking industry to take this initiative and break the silence around menstrual hygiene management. The historic initiative was inaugurated by SBI's Deputy Managing Director and COO Saloni Narayan. The Pune Pilot will have the following impact:
· Accessibility to a hygienic disposal facility at the source
· 1200 kg of carbon savings on a monthly basis
· Align with Sustainable Development Goals - 3 (good health and well-being), 5 (gender equality) and 11 (sustainable cities) - of the United Nations.
Technology startup incubator Venture Center has invested an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding under BIRAC's LEAP Fund in PadCare Labs. The investment will be leveraged to grow capabilities in RnD, Operations, Team Expansion, Manufacturing while expanding the market footprint and impact.
Venture Center has been engaging with Padcare since its inception via mentoring, grant support and now as investors. Shruti Devasthali, Manager- Equity Portfolio, Venture Center, is extremely excited about the enormous potential that Padcare has in building meaningful solutions for society's sanitary waste management problems - a problem that has now reached worrisome proportions!
PadCare has also established associations with Toilet Board Coalition, Dassault Systems, Tata Trust, Unlimited India, CIIE, MSINS, Pune International Center and has received product development grants from central and state government schemes like BIRAC- SOCH, NITI Ayog - Atal New India Innovation Challenge.