How She Handcrafted A New Home For The Temple Flowers Waste

Do you know that your Devotion is causing Pollution?

Have you ever wondered what happens to the flowers that you offer to God?

Surely, you do not have any idea how many tonnes of fresh flowers end up polluting the land and water bodies near our temples!!

But Wait…..Temple Flowers Waste is not a waste anymore. Flowers still can spread fragrance as eco-friendly handmade inscence. Read this to know HOW..

India is a land of temples. And devotees love to offer variety of flowers to show their devotion and belief to GOD. And they just last for a couple of hours or may be a day and then thrown out in garbage and rivers.

Now, you must be wondering that the flowers are biodegradable, then how can they pollute? Yes, you are right.

But the flowers take one week to decompose and also all the goodness of flowers is lost. Now imagine about tonnes of floral waste done every single day.

Floral waste, reportedly, accounts for 16 per cent of the total river pollutant. While rotting flowers affect the water quality, the pesticides that are used on them, leach into the waters and harms marine life.

But the same waste flowers have an enormous potential of being turned into wealth.

Meet Poonam from Haryana, who made an effort to make sure that devotion does not turn into pollution.

Her Story

Poonam Sehrawat, 38 years old, lady from Gurgaon, India founded Aaruhi Enterprises in June 2019 and since then  she helps devotion to spread fragrance and not waste.

This is a story of a homemaker turning to a Ecofreak Entrprenuer.

She collects tons of flowers from 25 temples in Delhi/Ncr, Gurgaon on daily basis and makes handcrafted organic products through Flowercycling technology. The products include inscence dhoop sticks, diyas, air freshners, and many more.

The sacred temple flowers can find a new place in your home.

“I was a housewife and always busy with household chores. When my both sons went to hostel, I had lot of time and I usually liked visiting the nearby temple everyday. Just when wondering, the amount of flowers that was offered to God and the floral waste generated, I was worried. Then me and my Friend and Partner Pinki Yadav researched to find a solution for this.” Poonam Says.

She then started requesting the temple priests to give her all the used flowers the next day. And did the same to all nearby temples. She struggled hard to convince the priests and managed to collect the waste.

“I used to start for temples from morning 5 am to collect and used to put the waste bags in my car. Some times ants used to spread inside the car too. My family and friends did not had much hope on what I was upto” She said smilingly.

Then gradually she started collecting 60 kgs of flowers from 4 temples everyday. Employed a women to segregate the waste flowers, leaves, plastic and other waste in those lots. After doing a lot of research she was finally able to achieve the process of making inscence sticks from flowers.

She somehow managed to get a small area at her friend’s place where she made a shed to store the flowers. But life is not easy, my friend. One rain spoiled all the efforts and the flowers.

We all know where there is a will. there is a way , and she found a way. She donated dustbins to the temples so that the segregation of flowers can be done in the temple itself.