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Texas State University Civil Engineer senior Jamie Hand, 22, of Houston, checks out dried Water hyacinth, Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021. Together with Associate Professor San Hwang, they are working on using the invasive water hyacinth as material for menstrual products for women.

Texas State University Civil Engineer senior Jamie Hand, 22, of Houston, checks out dried powdered water hyacinth mixed with paper, Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021. Together with Associate Professor San Hwang, they are working on using the invasive water hyacinth as material for menstrual products for women.

Sample of cotton, left, and cotton combined with dried powdered water hyacinth are seen in a lab at Texas State University, Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021. Civil engineer senior Jamie Hand, 22, of Houston is working with Associate Professor San Hwang in using the invasive water hyacinth as material for menstrual products for women.

Texas State University Civil Engineer Associate Professor San Hwang talks research into using the invasive water hyacinth to produce women?•s menstrual products, Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021.

Every spring, water hyacinth unfurls a carpet of lavender flowers and green bulbs over large swaths of the San Marcos River.

But that beautiful, floating tapestry is what makes the plant so invasive. It could starve out endangered aquatic species and soak up too much water from the protected river.

Enter a group of Texas State University students and a professor. Their unique solution to the problem: Harvest the super-absorbent flower to make organic, low-cost menstrual products.

There’s a need to be met. “Period poverty” — the inability to find or afford menstrual products — “can lead some women to have to use leaves, reuse pads” or resort to other unsanitary measures, said senior Jamie Hand, a 22-year-old civil engineering major who is heading up the project.

The idea is coming to fruition in the environmental engineering laboratory at the Bill and Gloria Ingram Hall at the College of Science and Engineering at Texas State.

The lab looks like a regular lab, with microscopes and equipment and white walls. But it also has menstrual pads stuck to the walls. Boxes and boxes of dried water hyacinth sit ready for testing.

San Hwang, an associate professor in the university’s civil engineering program, said he got the idea for the project after his high school-aged daughter came to him one day after school.

“She mentioned to me about how many females are suffering because of not having enough menstrual products, or menstrual products being too expensive and not very accessible,” Hwang said.

Texas State University Civil Engineer senior Jamie Hand, 22, of Houston, holds a dried water hyacinth, Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021. Together with Associate Professor San Hwang, they are working on using the invasive water hyacinth as material for menstrual products for women.

Water hyacinth blooms from March to November on the San Marcos River, and the students set out in their kayaks in the spring to pull the invasive plant from the water.

It originates in Brazil. It was introduced here sometime in the late 1800s by visitors to Texas. It reproduces quickly, and the floating carpets block critical sunlight that aquatic species need.

It also creates navigation hazards because it can dry out portions of the river.

But that very abundance and absorbency that make the plant a nuisance are what make it work as an organic menstrual product.

“It’s so fibrous and so absorbent,” Hand said, pulling apart a dried bulb of a plant to reveal thousands of stringy fibers inside. “There are other types of menstrual pads that are plant-based, and what we’re trying to do is make it easily duplicable, so that way other people can make it on their own.”

Texas State University Civil Engineer senior Jamie Hand, 22, of Houston, holds a sample of dried powdered water hyacinth, Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021. Together with Associate Professor San Hwang, they are working on using the invasive water hyacinth as material for menstrual products for women.

Hand 3D-printed a prototype earlier this year and has been hard at work in the laboratory with other students, coming up with different compounds and ingredients that can make it a reality.

They start by using natural solutions to clean the plants and get all the microorganisms out. Then they put the fibers in a standard kitchen blender and turn them into fine, sand-like particles that resemble lemon pepper spices.

The students have tried different ways to turn the fibers into a pad, including blending it with cotton to produce a super-absorbent, natural product. Experiments line the walls of the laboratory: pads that were too brittle, too soft or not absorbent enough.

Hwang says they expect to have a deliverable product by spring. Then they can start production and collaborate with other communities fighting water hyacinth to begin production on a larger scale.

“Water hyacinth is an invasive species in many places, like Kenya, South America, Michigan and elsewhere,” Hwang said.

And the product serves “women right here in San Marcos that could benefit from low-cost organic period products,” Hand said. “We want to start here and work our way out.”

Annie Blanks writes for the Express-News through Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. ReportforAmerica.org. annie.blanks@express-news.net.

Annie Blanks covers the city of San Marcos for the San Antonio Express-News. She previously covered local government in the Florida Panhandle for USA TODAY and originally hails from Macon, Georgia.