How Floral Waste is Helping India: Jobs for Women and Cleaner Rivers

The floral waste sector in India is growing and bringing many benefits. It is creating jobs for women and keeping waste out of dumpsites, which helps the environment. India is focusing on sustainability and a circular economy, which means reusing and recycling materials as much as possible.

What is a Circular Economy?

A circular economy is a way of making and using things that involves sharing, reusing, repairing, and recycling. This helps products last longer and reduces waste.

Efforts in Temples

Temples are using composting pits and involving temple trusts and self-help groups (SHGs) in recycling efforts. Educating priests and devotees about not dumping floral waste in rivers can help reduce waste. The ‘Green Temples’ idea aims to make temples eco-friendly by using digital offerings or biodegradable materials instead of traditional flowers.

National Horticulture Board’s Role

The National Horticulture Board is helping to track and manage floral waste in parks and green spaces. Floral waste often ends up in landfills or water bodies, causing health problems and harming aquatic life. The river Ganga alone absorbs over 8 million metric tons of flower waste each year.

Innovative Solutions

Under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0, many Indian cities are finding new ways to recycle floral waste. Social entrepreneurs are turning flowers into useful products like compost, soaps, candles, and incense sticks.

Ujjain’s Mahalakaleshwar Temple

With 75,000 to 100,000 visitors daily, this temple produces 5-6 tons of waste each day. Specialized vehicles collect this waste, which is then turned into eco-friendly products by 16 women from the Shiv Arpan Self-Help Group.

Siddhivinayak Temple

This temple sees 40,000 to 50,000 visitors daily, with up to 100,000 on some days. Mumbai-based ‘Adiv Pure Nature’ turns the temple’s discarded flowers into natural dyes for textiles.

Tirupati Municipal Corporation

This city handles over six tons of floral waste daily, turning it into valuable products. 150 women from self-help groups are employed in this effort.

Kanpur’s Phool

Phool collects 21 metric tons of floral waste weekly from five temple towns. This waste is turned into items like incense sticks and havan cups, providing safe jobs and benefits for women.

HolyWaste in Hyderabad

Founded in 2018, HolyWaste collects floral waste from 40 temples and other sources to make eco-friendly products like fertilizers and soaps.

Aaruhi in Delhi-NCR

Poonam Sehrawat’s startup collects floral waste from over 15 temples, recycling 1,000 kg of waste and earning over Rs 2 lakh monthly. Sehrawat has trained more than 3,000 women to create products from floral waste.