Bamboo Matchsticks

Matchsticks are an industrially manufactured and 500 billion matches are used annually around the world. Bamboo matchsticks have the potential to generate employment at the household level and in semi-mechanized units. Employment benefits would extend from bamboo growers and farm labourers to enterprise de­velopment, and especially benefit women.

• They can generate incomes of up to Rs 200/day.
• Bamboo counters shortage of wood created by competing wood product markets.
• Presently, 156 billion sticks are consumed per annum (growing at 6%) in India, requiring 4.33 million cubic metres of wood which can be replaced by bamboo.
• The quality of bamboo matchstick produced meets BIS standards.
• In India, INBAR has a patent on bamboo matchsticks to keep it in the public domain.
• INBAR has developed tools, pedal-operated and electric machines for mass production; with prototypes developed rural manufacture of 0.3 million sticks per day.
• A more attractive tool has been developed that can produce square section matchsticks of precise size specifi­cation in scale.
• Rural communities participate by producing the processed bamboo slats that form the raw material for laminated sheets. They can also undertake enterprise activity in the lamination process.