The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

What are the cost of the material + the proportional part of the 10 salaries + other costs?

>* He weighed it in his hand and wondered why 10g (less than 0.5oz) of cotton, which at the time cost 10 paise (£0.001), should sell for 4 rupees (£0.04) - 40 times the price.*

This is the first estimation of the material cost. Then he learned that they use cellulose. And I don't know if it considers the cost of the surrounding cloth or the plastic wrap. Just assume this is accurate and pick a material cost of 0.10 rupees/pad.

> [...] and provides employment for 10 women. They can produce 200-250 pads a day [...]

Assuming a 20 days/month work, we get 500 pads/month/worker. The minimum salary is slightly bigger than ~100 rupees, let's say 0.02 rupees/pad

I don't know the details in India, but tax and retirement founds and security health may add a 50%, that is 0.01 rupees/pad.

> A manual machine costs around 75,000 Indian rupees (£723) - a semi-automated machine costs more.

To recover machine the cost in 5 years, with 60000 pads/year, the result is 0.25 rupees/pad.

> First, a machine similar to a kitchen grinder breaks down the hard cellulose into fluffy material, which is packed into rectangular cakes with another machine.

Well, I don't know the cost of cellulose. Just assume that it's a good approximation to consider the cost of an equivalent amount of cotton instead, as in the first paragraph. [ * ]

Another cost source is the gas to cook the cellulose and the electricity for the light in the building and the building maintenance cost and ... I don't know how to do a good estimation of them, so just forget them.

And don't forget to add taxes.

Then my optimistic cost is 0.38 ruppes/pad and they sell them for 2.5 rupees, so it's a x6.6 margin, instead of a x25 margin.

[ * ] If I'm free to invent numbers, I'd like to double the material cost from 0.1 to 0.2 rupees/pad to consider the changes in the material. Then the total estimation is 0.48 ruppes/pad and the margin reduced to x5.2.

The 2.5 stayed local and made jobs. Its a huge difference. In essence, he gave the locals "permission" to produce these things for themselves.

Wealth disparity is an interesting animal. The rich don't consume 1000's of times more resources than the poor despite having 1000's of times more 'money'. The wealth divide seems to function like an insidious form control wherein the uber-rich are able to deny local markets permission to do things for themselves.

Its great to see when guys like this realize its all just made of paper (literally and figuratively in this case) and they can actually just do it for themselves.

Jesus. Why does TED has to go and spoil every fucking good thing?

> "You always have a girl in white jeans, jumping over a wall," he says. "They never talk about hygiene."

Look's like the marketing folks at P&G were selling this stuff to the mostly affluent. Therefore, I am guessing they never bothered to sell the hygiene angle.

> "You always have a girl in white jeans, jumping over a wall," he says. "They never talk about hygiene."

Look's like the marketing folks at P&G were selling this stuff to the mostly affluent. Therefore, I am guessing they never bothered to sell the hygiene angle.