Amit reveals, “We knew that if we wanted to sustain the organisation, we had to make it profitable. But, flowers used in temples are considered sacred and so, the biggest hurdle was to convince people to part with the flowers.Their research revealed that every day, about 4. “The novel concept prevented people from discarding the packages thoughtlessly and also made them feel like they were doing something beneficial to the environment. And so, bent on preserving one of the holiest rivers in the county, Amit and Karan set up Help Us Green in 2015 with limited funds and manpower.Conversations can bring about change and Ankit Agrawal, the founder of Help Us Green, can surely vouch for this axiom.However, it’s the sight of flowers being dumped into the river that set him thinking. | CHERYLANN MOLLAN Two Kanpur residents are working towards cleaning the Ganga by recycling temple flowers waste. That’s when this automation scientist reached out to his childhood friend and current Operations Manager of Help Us Green, Karan Rastogi. “Florafoam will be a kind of biodegradable Styrofoam which can replace, non-recyclable, non-biodegradable, single-use thermocol.
A social enterprise working towards minimising waste discarded in the Ganga, his foundation achieves its objective by recycling flowers used in temples into useful products such as incense sticks, cones and vermicompost. Ankit’s journey began the day when the Kanpur resident and a friend were sitting on the banks of the Ganges. The duo is eager to use flower waste to create a sustainable alternative to thermocol.“We started off with just `72,000 and two or three female workers. They have successfully raised over a million dollars; have a 21,000 sq. We didn’t even have a facility and used to work in a small space on the outskirts of Kanpur city in exchange for the vermicompost we made,” says Amit. When asked what lies ahead for the organisation, Amit says, “Our goal is to stop temple waste from being thrown into rivers.”The duo pulled off the seemingly impossible by giving their products trendy packaging and making good use of their convincing powers. In the hour we sat there, we saw over 150 people bathe in the river, while many drank the water or collected it in canisters. They have launched two additional plants in Varanasi and Mathura and are now investing heavily in research and development.5 to 6 tonnes of flowers are thrown into the river and the number increases to around 9 tonnes on festive days. So I called him up to find out why so many flowers end up in the Ganga,” says the entrepreneur. Plus, a truck carrying 1. However, tonnes of flowers, which are often coated with chemicals and pesticides, are dumped too,” points out Ankit.
