A HUGE INITIATIVE OF REUSING THE SACRED FLOWERS TO INCENSE STICKS WHICH NAME AS ‘PHOOL’.

Note: I’m not making any money from this it’s just I really like the efforts and the idea behind this if you will like it too here’s the link you can buy from the given website or at least visit their website. https://phool.co/

JOURNEY OF FLOWERS FROM BEING DUMPED IN THE RIVER TO INCENSE STICKS.

Ankit Agarwal the founder took a decision back in 2015 that not only helps in flower pollution as well as women employment now. Their each pack of incense sticks saves 125 kg flowers from being dumped in the Ganges. May I sound a little obsessive about this idea but when you will get to know the whole story and the concept trust me you are going to love it too. So, let’s just dig in.

https://amzn.to/3hm2eZM

WE ARE COVERING THESE QUESTIONS :

About the problem?

His concept behind this?

His struggle towards it?

The difference between Phool incense sticks and ordinary incense sticks?

You know that to understand anything we need to start from the basic. Here we know we are going to talk about flower incense sticks to know the story behind this first we need to understand the problem? That is flower pollution now let’s just have a short introduction to it.

WHAT IS FLOWER POLLUTION?

Showering flowers (8 Million tons annually) at Temples/Mosques is a religious ritual in India. These flowers are a symbol of devotion and thus believed that these sacrosanct flowers should be discarded into water bodies like the River Ganges to respect their sanctity. Sadly, these sacred flowers rot and create havoc in the fragile ecosphere of the water body and leach into the groundwater.

The Ganges, which is virtually synonymous with the Indian civilization, is dying. More than 420 million people rely on the Ganges for food, water, bathing and agriculture and not to mention the tens of Millions of pilgrims who venture to India's most holy of rivers each year to bathe and worship.

THE BIRTH OF HIS IDEA

 Ankit Agrawal and Karan Rastogi, who are childhood friends and have now collaborated to do their bit to save Ganga. Having grown up in one of the temple towns of India, they witnessed first hand how the enormous quantities of flowers offered in temples along the banks of the holy river, ended up in the Ganga.

He added, it was easy at first to place blame on the tanneries, factories, and sewers that were indiscriminately dumping their refuse into the river. While explaining the complexity of the problem to my friend, I shrugged it away telling him nothing really can be done about it. 

Something had to be done about this. Looking for the right opportunity, research revealed to us that most of these flowers that end up at the temples are loaded full of pesticides and insecticides. 

THEIR STRUGGLE BEHIND THIS

We had to toil to convey our idea of recycling the temple waste because nobody was willing to take it seriously or give up their floral waste. But our simple idea became a roar once it set rolling. We spent hours experimenting, meeting various stakeholders and pitching the idea of managing temple waste in the country. A year and a half and countless hours in a makeshift laboratory later, flower cycled incense and vermin compost were conceived and crafted. The mission to preserve the river Ganges and empower vernacular people by providing a means to earn their livelihood became a reality.

you can buy from their website https://phool.co/

You can buy from here : 

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IN PHOOL AND AN ORDINARY INCENSE

Incense difference –

Phool –
⦁ No charcoal
⦁ Hand rolled
⦁ Made from temple-flowers and plant resins
⦁ Contains Milk and honey
⦁ Hand dipped in Natural essential oils
⦁ Smoke contains –
⦁ Has therapeutic properties
⦁ No Sulphur content

Ordinary incense –
⦁ Made form Charcoal
⦁ Machine made
⦁ Artificial Perfume
⦁ Contains Potassium Nitrate (Saltpeter)
⦁ Smoke contains –
⦁ High Particulate matter
⦁ Volatile compounds, such as benzene, toluene, and xylenes
⦁ Produces aldehydes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)
⦁ High Sulphur Di oxide

The products that are churned out from flower waste are 

called Mitti and are 100% natural,

PHOOL

made without any chemicals. What’s great is that even the packaging of the product is eco-friendly. Just throw the packaging into the soil instead of your dustbin, water it and see it grow into a plant. What’s more – the duo has employed over 85 women from different self-help groups in villages around Kanpur thereby providing them with a source of income.

Currently, one can buy the products online through their site or via e-commerce websites like Flipkart, Amazon to name a few. https://amzn.to/3hm2eZM Starting from Rs.s 150 one can buy products like Incense Sticks, cones, bio-fertilizers for soil or plants and sticks used for havan or yajna. 

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ZERO WASTE STATIONARY IDEAS :

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