#coir

...the focus of this coir-covered staircase is an ornately carved balustrade which doubles back sharply to create an elaborate linear pattern. The space by stairs is often wasted; here it is piled with unusual rustic baskets.

For the last three years, R. Madhana has been reaching out to women’s self-help groups to teach them about the commercial potential of flower pots made with coir dust, a waste product derived from the fibrous mesocarp (middle layer) of the coconut husk. She is now trying to empower local businesswomen to venture into this full-time.

With the help of a hot press die cutting machine installed at a demonstration unit in Srirangam, Ms. Madhana’s firm, ‘Saini Eco Products and Exports’, creates six- and eight-inch planter pots, and smaller ‘root trainers’ that can replace plastics in gardening and agricultural operations.

“Coir dust used to be thrown away earlier or burned by farmers. Few people are aware of the value-added products that can be made with it. These pots are completely biodegradable, and since the material is naturally absorbent, can reduce the amount of water used in gardening,” the entrepreneur told The Hindu.

Ms. Madhana maintains a training workshop in Srirangam and a production unit at Aranthangi for client orders. Coir is sourced from farmers in and around Aranthangi while the natural latex needed to bind the matting is brought from Kerala.

“I am trying to help more women join this sector in our district,” said Ms. Madhana. As a pilot project, she has tie-up with producers in nearby cities, to buy back the coir pots made with her machine.

By the late 1700s, engineers in England, France, Scotland, and North America were experimenting with steamboats. In 1822, the Aaron Manby became the first iron steamship to go to sea, traveling across the English Channel from London to Paris. By the 1860s, the British, French, and Russian navies had heavily armed steamships. After this, “a great epoch in naval history came to an end,” write Romola and R. C. Anderson in The Sailing Ship: Six Thousand Years of History.

But it was not the end of the line for cordage. Even today’s motorized metal behemoths, slicing through the sea at unprecedented speeds, rely on rope and string. Terry Schafer, a navy shipyard rigger in Victoria, British Columbia, has been professionally tangled with cordage since the 1980s. “When I finished my apprenticeship, I worried I had chosen a dying craft,” he says. “But there is still a lot of demand for a skilled rigger today.” Schafer and his colleagues manufacture all the cordage the navy requires: tow ropes; hoist cables for cranes, winches, and dumbwaiters; woven fenders that cloak the lips of tugboats like mustaches and beards; ropes to tie the ships at harbor; ropes that fly the navy’s flags; and artfully knotted ropes to ring the bells that help sailors keep strict schedules. Schafer mostly works with synthetic materials including Kevlar, various plastics, and metal wire. But he occasionally uses plant fibers as well: cotton, flax, manila hemp (from a species of banana), sisal (from agave), and coir (from the waterproof buoyant husks of coconuts).

My day in the garden….