Kanpur Temple Flower Waste Is Being Recycled By Two Friends

Aaliya Satavelekar - Oct 31, 2018

Two Kanpur friends, Karan Rastogi and Ankit Agarwal, become closer from childhood since they have found a recycling solution for waste flowers that local temples throw away.

Help Us Green

They became famous with an eco-friendly foundation, named Help Us Green, which collect waste flowers used for offerings purposes or in celebrations, then transform them into many other products, including vermicompost, organic incense, and most impressive - Florafoam - the first non-toxic thermocol all over the world.

The idea for the foundation was root in Ankit since 2015, when there was a visit of a Czech friend, Makar Sakranti, to him in Kanpur.

Two of them watched people at Ganga went to the bank, pour water into bottles and holders, then drink them. Makar was really concerned about the purity of the water, since devotees also put flowers to the river as offerings, and waste flowers are being offloaded from trucks coming from the nearby temples.

Then an idea came to Ankit, he thought about a way to clean up all those flowers, then shared it with Karan. They did research and many experience in 7 months, and finally introduce a recipe of vermicompost, afterwards the introduction of incense sticks. The product Florafoam took longer to become real. At the moment, they are working on transforming flowers into bioleathers.

Changing lives

Acknowledging the importance of this idea, two friends resigned from their daylife jobs, to fully devote for this start up. The their own capital about Rs 72,000 and a couple tonnes of flowers they get from volunteer every day, they have to work hard. Up to the moment, they have a production house in Kanpur, with the capacity of about 5 tonnes of flowers per day from 39 temples in various places of the city.

They are still in the beginning of introducing Florafoam, with the name Phool for the product, and some potential customers are showing interests. Though their main targets are corporate clients, two friends are gradually focusing more on individual customers, and in Diwali, they expect Rs 8 crore in revenue.

The foundation also got some reputation. Karan and Ankit are going to the UN General Assembly to present their wonderful idea, and also nominated for a UNICEF award by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They are also ambitious in spreading out their initiatives to other areas in Mathura, Vrindavan and Varanasi.