Written by Ms. Raheema Auwal-Panti, 15, from Minna iin Nigeria state, Nigeria, placed PantiPads among 35 top youth environmental innovations in the world, competing against more than 6,000 entries from 169 countries
A 15-year-old Nigerian student has built a biodegradable sanitary pad from agricultural waste and placed her project among the 35 best youth environmental innovations on the planet.
Ms. Raheema Auwal-Panti, from Minna, the capital of Niger State, founded PantiPads in 2025 after learning that most commercial sanitary pads contain up to 90 per cent plastic and take between 500 and 800 years to break down in the environment.
She decided to build an alternative using cassava peelings, banana leaves and corn husks, farm by-products that are routinely discarded in her community. The project has now earned a place among 35 global scholar teams selected at the 2026 Earth Prize, the world’s largest environmental competition for students aged 13 to 19.
More than 6,000 applications were submitted from across 169 countries for this year’s edition, according to The Earth Foundation, the Geneva, Switzerland-based non-profit that organises the competition. Two Nigerian teams made the final 35. PantiPads was one of them.
From Farm Waste to Finished Product
Nigeria ranks among the world’s largest producers of cassava. Processing the crop at scale generates large volumes of solid waste, including peelings, dried banana leaves and corn husks.
In northern Nigeria, where agriculture anchors much of the local economy, this material is often left to decompose in the open, contributing to organic water pollution and soil contamination when not properly handled.
Ms. Auwal-Panti saw potential where others saw disposal problems. Her production process starts with cleaning and drying the plant materials.
They are then softened and processed into absorbent natural fibre layers, shaped and assembled into finished pads.
“The goal is to make something that is safe for girls and safer for the environment,” she told environmental publication Dialogue Earth.
The pads are designed to decompose far faster than their plastic-based counterparts, leaving a smaller environmental footprint through each product’s lifecycle.
Two Problems, One Product
PantiPads is built to address two separate challenges at once.
The first is environmental. Conventional disposable sanitary products generate significant plastic waste.
Many contain plastic-based inner layers, backing sheets and adhesive strips that do not break down in landfill for generations.
Replacing even a portion of that volume with plant-based alternatives would reduce the load on both landfill sites and waterways.
The second challenge is access. Affordable menstrual products remain out of reach for many girls and women across parts of Nigeria.
A UNESCO report on Puberty Education and Menstrual Hygiene Management found that some girls in Africa miss up to four days of school each month during menstruation due to a combination of product unavailability, stigma and poor sanitation facilities. Ms. Auwal-Panti grew up observing this reality in Niger State.
“Conventional sanitary pads are 90 per cent plastic and take 500 to 800 years to biodegrade,” she said. “If no one does something about it, I could do something about it.”
She has been direct about the scale of what she is attempting. “It’s not a product, it’s a movement,” she told Dialogue Earth, framing PantiPads as a campaign for menstrual dignity alongside its environmental goals.
Nigeria’s Showing at the 2026 Earth Prize
The Earth Prize shortlist, announced in April 2026, placed two Nigerian teams among the five African entries selected from the global pool.
The second Nigerian project, BookBank Africa, is a textbook redistribution initiative created by Ms. Ossai Gift Chimdiuto and Ms. Ekwueme Chiziterem Noalene, who developed a network and app to collect and circulate school books rather than burning them at year’s end.
Kenya’s HewaSafi team, which developed a low-cost maize-based vehicle exhaust filter, was named the Africa regional winner, earning USD 12,500 (approximately N20 million at current exchange rates) to implement the project.
PantiPads, while not the regional winner, was recognised as an Earth Prize Scholar, a distinction the adjudicating panel awards for exceptional submissions from the global shortlist.
The competition is now in its fifth year and has reached more than 21,000 students across 169 countries since it began, according to Earth Foundation records.
What Comes Next for PantiPads
Ms. Auwal-Panti is not rushing toward manufacturing.
Her current focus is on understanding production systems, working alongside existing producers and building partnerships within Nigeria’s business community.
A local production facility is the long-term ambition, but the immediate work is foundational.
She has also made a direct call to policymakers.
“African governments have a very key role to play in formulating policy shifts to transition from plastic pads to biodegradable sanitary products,” she said.
Without government engagement on procurement, regulation and public awareness, she argues, the market for biodegradable menstrual products will remain a niche rather than a standard.
PantiPads has no commercial product at scale yet. The project remains in development. But for an initiative founded by a teenager using cassava peelings sourced from farms in northern Nigeria, reaching the global top 35 of one of the world’s most contested youth environmental competitions is the kind of early signal that attracts the partnerships and attention a project at this stage requires to move forward.
