My name is Krishiv Gupta and I am a student of Grade 10
EcoBinder is a student-led project where I explore how agricultural waste like rice husk, wheat
straw, and sugarcane bagasse can be used as a partial replacement for cement.
About the Project and Me
My name is Krishiv Gupta and I am a student of Grade 10. I am passionate about not only my academics but also how I can give back to the society that has helped me grow. As i have grown older and been exposed to newer fields of interest in my life, I have really taken an interest to one in particular being Real Estate. This fondness in the field of real estate grew not only because of my parents being real estate developers in the city of Mumbai but also because I was always found the concept of constructing a building and delivering it to those in your society very interesting.
Through my journey in real estate I have learned about the importance of cement however, I would always ponder about its negative impacts to our environment, I always looked for something that could reduce the amount of cement used so our community and our living spaces would be cleaner. That was when I found rice husk ash and that was the beginning of this project, EcoBinder.
The research stage of this project was integral to its development and overall direction. The idea began when I started thinking about whether cement could realistically be replaced, even partially, by a more sustainable material.
Rice / Rice husk
- Uttar Pradesh (UP) – top paddy producing state (large volumes, many rice mills).
- Punjab – high productivity; very large paddy residue problem (stubble burning).
- West Bengal – one of the largest producers by volume.
- Telangana / Chhattisgarh / Odisha — also significant pockets of paddy. Why target: rice mills concentrate husk (easy to aggregate) and many states have ongoing stubble-management programmes offering collection support.
Sugarcane / Bagasse
- Uttar Pradesh — largest sugarcane producer.
- Maharashtra — second-largest sugarcane production and many sugar mills. Karnataka,
- Tamil Nadu — important sugarcane regions with many mills. Why target: sugar mills produce bagasse on-site (fuel for boilers) and generate ash streams — this is a point-source collection opportunity.
Wheat / Wheat straw
- Uttar Pradesh — largest wheat production and therefore largest straw pool.
- Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan — high straw generation and also high stubble-burning incidence (Punjab has ambitious straw-management targets).Why target: wheat straw is abundant and often left in fields; it requires ex-situ collection or conversion (pelletisation, baling) before being turned into ash or used in composites.
- Rice mills / parboiling units: collect husk directly (already separated). Good first contact point for RHA feedstock.
- Sugar mills & cogeneration plants: bagasse and bagasse ash are produced at the plant (ash may be available from boilers). Contact mill management or ash-handling units.
- Large farms / FPOs / cooperatives: can supply bales of straw or husks; organized farmer-producer organisations (FPOs) are often easier to negotiate with.
- Biomass power plants / 2G ethanol distilleries / pellet plants: may have ash or off-spec feedstock streams.
- Local mandis (grain markets): for aggregated grain byproducts and straw bales; good for small-scale off-takers.
- Municipal / industrial partners: brick-kilns or ash-processing units that may already accept agri-ash for fuel or blending.