Putting Down Roots

Imagine how much greener our cities would be if every pen we threw away put out a shoot and grew into a plant. Social entrepreneur Lakshmi Menon is making that happen.

- Nikita Sawant

The cool thing about each one of Lakshmi Menon’s many ideas is how deceptively small they are. Take, for example, the Rolapena. The home science graduate was working as an artist in a gallery in San Francisco when she noticed, on her trips back home to Kerala, the depressing heaps of plastic waste lying by the side of nearly every road. “Much of that plastic was discarded pens. So I decided to start making paper ones in my hometown, Kochi.”