Each year in the U.S., India and Japan, a staggering 350 billion pieces of plastic cutlery or plastic chopsticks are thrown into landfills or other trash sites.

Some of it pollutes the ground water or the lakes which provide our drinking water. And plastic is not biodegradable. It leaches chemicals that can become cancer causing.

In India, Narayana decided to do something about this plastic plague that is bringing destruction to the environment. What he created is very interesting.

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Narayana created edible spoons and chopsticks from millet, rice and wheat, that are nutritious, yet hardy enough to accommodate hot beverages and other challenges spoons endure.

So instead of using plastic spoons, or conventional chopsticks, people can use his spoons or chopsticks and eat them afterward. They come in several different flavors.

Edible Spoons  

Photo: businessworld.in

For people who would still toss them in the trash, his spoons and chopsticks are biodegradable within 4 to 5 days.

In 2011, Narayana started Bakeys Edible Cutlery, funding the company by using his retirement savings as collateral to borrow the money.

Today, his firm employs 9 women to produce these spoons and chopsticks, and has now sold 1.5 million of them.

As his sales continue to grow, Narayana will be able to compete in price with plastics, meaning we will all be incented to use his products.

By doing so, we will help to solve two of mankind's great problems, feeding vast numbers of poor people and safely disposing of our waste, as we make this a better world.

Success Tip of the Week: As was true here, great innovations often don't come from corporate giants or governments, they come from one or two "ordinary" people. You too could create a product or service that could begin to make a wonderful difference in the world.

Editor's Note: Thanks to the Internet, Bakeys Edible Cutlery, will soon be available to you. https://www.ketto.org/bakeys?gclid=CPydh5KQkcwCFVc1aQodzwkBPQ

In the next KazanToday: The doctor with an unusual background who became the father of modern pain management.