Hey folks!

We don’t mean to scare you, but have you ever thought of this?

Every time you drink water in India, bottled, filtered, or straight from the tap, you’re probably also drinking plastic. 

Not the kind you can see. They’re smaller… much smaller. Microplastics are plastic particles under 5mm, shed by bottles, packaging, and synthetic textiles, that find their way into rivers, groundwater, and eventually your glass. 

One study found that local bottled water brands in central India contain up to 212 microplastic particles per litre. And most conventional filters simply can’t catch them because the particles are too small.

Which is where these three teenagers come in — Vivaan Chhawchharia, Ariana Agarwal, and Avyana Mehta and they just won The Earth Prize 2026, a global competition for young environmental innovators, beating thousands of entries worldwide. And mind you, they’re the first Indian team to ever win it!

Their solution is called Plas-Stick. And it starts with something you’d find in any Indian kitchen.

Tamarind seeds.

Normally after extracting pulp from tamarind, you’d throw away the seeds. But they actually contain a natural compound called xyloglucan, which causes suspended particles in water to clump together. 

These teenagers somehow figured out how to use this property on microplastics specifically. Mix tamarind seed powder into contaminated water, the plastics bind into clumps, and then you pull them out with a magnet. That’s how simple these three geniuses made it seem!

And apparently the idea came after the trio visited a rural community and watched a child drink unfiltered water straight from a shared plastic container. 

The teenagers are well deservedly being praised for their project as it is not just effective but also affordable, scalable, and rooted in locally available resources. 

And honestly, it’s funny. India has been staring at a microplastics crisis for years, and the answer was sitting in the discard pile of a tamarind processing unit or even in our homes the whole time. But these three teenagers just thought to check there. :)

Here’s a soundtrack to put you in the mood… 🎵

Manzil by Chambalguy (Somanshu Agarwal)

You can thank our reader Prateek Senapati for this lovely recommendation.

What caught our eye this week

A lesson from the Durian Tsunami

Imagine planting a crop so profitable that it changes your life. Then waiting seven years... only to discover everyone else had the exact same idea.

A few days ago, the world celebrated World Durian Day. Which makes this the perfect time to talk about a rather unusual problem.

Malaysia is grappling with something called a “durian tsunami”.

Markets are overflowing with the spiky Southeast Asian fruit famous for its custard-like flesh and an aroma so strong that it’s banned in some hotels, trains and airports. Yet despite (or because of) that smell, it’s affectionately known as the “King of Fruits”.

And now, farmers who once couldn’t grow enough durians are scrambling to find buyers for them.

So what happened?

Well, to understand that, we need to rewind about a decade.

Back then, Musang King (the premium variety or the Alphonso of the durian world) wasn’t much more than a regional delicacy. Then China started falling for it, hard.

Chinese durian imports exploded to a record $7 billion in 2024, more than tripling in just four years. And China now buys over 90% of the world’s traded durian. Musang King, in particular, became known as the “Hermès of durian”, a status fruit that wealthy Chinese buyers were happy to pay a premium for.

This Chinese appetite for durians turned them into the next big export success, encouraging farmers across Malaysia to get into durian farming. It even transformed entire towns. For instance, Raub, a former gold-mining settlement in Malaysia reinvented itself as the country’s “Durian Capital”, with oil palm plantations being converted into Musang King orchards.

And when Musang King prices climbed to 90 ringgit (about ₹2,100) a kilo, Malaysian farmers did what any of us would probably do.

They planted more trees. Lots of them.

But durian farming isn’t like turning on a tap. Trees take anywhere between five and seven years to bear fruit. So by the time all those newly planted orchards matured, they matured together.

Farmers who had made planting decisions based on yesterday’s high prices suddenly showed up with baskets full of fruit at exactly the same time.

And because of that prices for Musang King crashed by a whopping 90%. Even Kampung durians, the cheaper, locally grown varieties, fell to just 1–4 ringgit (₹20–₹80) a kilo.

Economists have a name for this: the “cobweb cycle”. Simply put, high prices encourage farmers to plant more. But because crops take time to grow, the additional supply arrives months or even years later, often all at once. Prices then crash, prompting farmers to plant less. Supply eventually shrinks, prices rise again, and the cycle repeats. When economists plot these price and supply movements over time, they resemble a spider’s web, hence the name.

And if you think this is only a Malaysian problem, think again.

Take tur dal in India, for instance. Whenever prices spike, like they did in 2015–16, farmers respond by planting more the following season. But pulses also take months to grow. By the time the bumper harvest reaches markets, prices often collapse. Farmers then switch to other crops, supply tightens, prices rise again, and the cycle starts all over.

Agriculture is especially vulnerable to this for three reasons.

First, production lags are long and fairly fixed. Once a farmer plants a crop, there’s very little they can do if prices change halfway through the season.

Second, most agricultural produce is perishable. Unlike steel or smartphones, farmers can’t simply warehouse tomatoes, onions or fresh durians for months while waiting for better prices.

And third, farmers make decisions with limited information. They know today’s prices, but they don’t know what millions of other farmers are planting at the same time.

That’s why Malaysia’s FAMA (Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority) is now scrambling to soften the blow. It’s buying durians directly from farmers, expanding cold storage and looking for new export markets to absorb the excess supply.

One thing, however, hasn’t changed. Premium durians are still being stolen from stalls and orchards despite the price crash.

Some fruits, it seems, are simply irresistible.

Infographic

Readers Recommend

This week, our reader Rana Pratim Sarma recommends reading The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa.

It’s a heartwarming novel about a housekeeper, her young son, and a brilliant mathematician whose memory lasts only 80 minutes after an accident. As they spend time together, they form an unlikely bond, showing how kindness, mathematics, and small everyday moments can create lasting connections even when memories cannot.

And this is what Rana has to say about it:

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa is a fun little read. It brings out the beauty of mathematics in the most childishly magical way. If you dreaded maths in school (as many of us did, myself included), this book might help, at least to some extent, replace that fear with an appreciation for the simple beauty that lies at the heart of mathematics.

Thanks for the rec, Rana!

That’s it from us this week. We’ll see you next Sunday.

Until then, send us your book, music (preferably from underrated Indian artists), business movies, documentaries, or podcast recommendations. We’ll feature them in this newsletter! Also, don’t forget to tell us what you thought of today’s edition. Just hit reply to this email (or if you’re reading this on the web, drop us a message at morning@finshots.in).

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