How a company in Kanpur is giving India's flower waste a second life.
It’s a sweltering April afternoon in Bhaunti village, about an hour’s drive from the heart of Kanpur, India. Inside a large hall, shaded from the harsh sun, the air is thick with the scent of marigold and rose. Groups of women, dressed in bright cotton sarees and salwar suits, work with quiet concentration. Some sit in circles, carefully sorting flower offerings collected from nearby temples; others pluck delicate petals with practiced hands. At one end, a few women lift heavy tubs of freshly washed blooms, carrying them outside to spread on large sheets, where the sun will slowly draw out their moisture, preparing them for the next stage of transformation.
Inside the factory, 38-year-old Preity Mishra moves with quiet efficiency, neatly packing incense boxes with an ease that comes from years of practice. She first joined the factory seven years ago, after unexpectedly losing her previous job, where she had worked for nine long years. At first, Preity admits, she was hesitant. Preity, along with the other women, works for Phool, a company that converts flower waste into incense sticks, cones, essential oils, and dyes. “I thought it would be dirty work,” she recalls, brushing a speck of sandalwood dust from her sleeve. But her perspective quickly changed once she learned where the flowers came from. “When I found out the waste came from temples, I began to see it differently,” she says. “These flowers are sacred and offered in prayer. It felt like I was giving them a second life, which is noble work.”
Preity Mishra inspecting a box of incense sticks.
The story of Phool traces back to 2016, when Ankit Agarwal, a computer engineer turned entrepreneur, accompanied a visiting friend on a trip to Kanpur’s ghats along the Ganga River. It was the time of Makar Sankranti, an Indian festival marked by ritual river dips. Though the water appeared visibly polluted, devotees continued to bathe as part of the tradition. “My friend began asking me questions about the purity of the water, why people still took dips despite the pollution,” Ankit recalls. “I realized I didn’t have the answers. In the meantime, a huge tractor of flower waste came and was dumped into the river.”
That moment planted the first seed of what would eventually become Phool, which means “flower” in Hindi. “I returned to my job, but I couldn’t focus. I was working, but I wasn’t content,” Ankit says, sitting in his office in Kanpur. “I eventually quit and came back to research how this flower waste could be reduced or stopped entirely from polluting our rivers.”
India, with its countless festivals and year-round celebrations, generates a significant amount of solid waste, including an estimated 800 million tons of flower waste per year. As many of these flowers are grown using pesticides and insecticides, when this floral waste is dumped into water bodies, it begins to decay, producing a foul odor and contributing to serious water pollution—much like what Ankit and his friend witnessed in the Ganga River.
After he returned home to Kanpur, Ankit began crunching the numbers, calculating how many temples were in the region, how much flower waste was generated daily, and the scale at which it was being dumped. The results were staggering. According to government data, there are about 108,000 temples and mosques in India where flowers are offered every day, before being dumped in landfills or bodies of water, contributing significantly to the country’s water pollution and ecological damage.
A worker scatters flower petals on a plastic sheet to help them dry.
Ankit began reaching out to temples, hoping to convince them to hand over their floral waste so that it might have a second life. “It was difficult to convince them,” he says. “Flowers offered at temples hold deep religious significance, so naturally, there was hesitation.” The temples weren’t resistant out of indifference, but an abundance of caution. “They were sincere in their concerns,” Ankit acknowledges. “They wanted to know why I wanted the flowers and what exactly I intended to do with them.”
Once Ankit succeeded in securing the flower waste, he spent the next several months immersed in research, exploring different ways the discarded blooms could be transformed into something meaningful. “I spent around eight months studying how this waste could be turned into compost or used in other sustainable ways,” he says. Then, he had a breakthrough. “Incense sticks are usually made from charcoal,” he recalls thinking. “Why not try making them from temple flower waste instead?”
Ankit and his co-founder, Prateek Kumar, began operating out of IIT Kanpur, slowly putting their idea into action. Every day, Ankit would ride his two-wheeler to find a daily-wage laborer to help with tasks like sorting flower waste and basic processing. But the pair struggled to find reliable help—a new worker would show up each day, and rarely would anyone return, even when Ankit personally asked them to come back. It became clear that if the project was to grow, they needed a more stable workforce.
Then, by chance, a woman came to their office one morning looking for work, and Ankit offered her a day’s job. As with many others, he asked her to return the next day—and to his surprise, she did.
A group of women rolling incense sticks by hand.
While they worked side by side, he started a conversation. Could she come regularly? Could she help bring in other women like her? She readily agreed. “It would be better to come here and work with flowers,” she told him, “than to go to seven or eight homes every morning to clean toilets. Even then, we don’t always get paid—just some leftover food or old clothes.”
Ankit was struck by her words. The next day, they visited nearby neighborhoods together, and soon, 35 women had joined the initiative. He trained them, helped them get their Aadhaar cards for the first time, assisted them in opening bank accounts, and taught them how to use mobile phones—all small but powerful steps toward economic empowerment and independence.
“It wasn’t easy at all,” Ankit says. “But we conducted a three-day workshop to teach them the basics. I didn’t want them to remain stuck in the informal sector. I wanted to bring them into the formal workforce, with dignity, stability, and skill.”
A worker monitors one of the factory's machines.
This commitment is fundamental to Phool’s success, and remains an important part of their work culture. “When we established the company, one thing was clear: There would be transparency. That’s why you’ll see there are no walls in the office—just glass partitions to divide the teams,” Ankit explains. “We also made a conscious decision to ensure that the women working with us have a clear path to grow. That’s why we move them from sorting to incense stick making, and then to packaging—so they not only feel a sense of progression but also develop leadership qualities in the process.”
Another important aspect, he shares, is supporting his employees in sending their children back to school. “We currently have 500 people working with us, and 490 of them are women,” Ankit says. “Around 60% of them have enrolled their children back in school. Our mission is to support all of them so that [over the next few years], 5,000 children return to classrooms. This is something we’re intentionally working on, even if we don’t speak about it publicly.”
As for the company itself, Ankit and his team remain dedicated to product innovation and exploring new possibilities with flower waste. Recently, the team even succeeded in creating sustainable “leather” from discarded flowers.
Workers dividing and sorting incense cones for packing.
Nachiket Kuntla, who heads the research and development division at Phool, believes this innovation could be a major breakthrough for the leather industry and the broader sustainable market. “We spent a good 7–8 years researching and experimenting with this idea,” says Nachiket. “We’ve now developed a product that is sustainable and matches leather in terms of texture, quality, and feel. We’ll be launching a pilot product in collaboration with a fashion brand by the end of this year.”
Phool’s journey is a reminder that sustainability doesn’t have to come at the cost of tradition—it can actually grow from it. What began as a simple act of questioning river pollution has now bloomed into a movement that empowers women, preserves faith, and protects the environment. As the world looks for other, cleaner ways forward, perhaps it’s time we ask ourselves: What else are we throwing away that could bloom again?
[post_title] => The Sacred Cycle
[post_excerpt] => How a company in Kanpur is giving India's flower waste a second life.
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“Who are these people who are not seeing that our people are dying?”
Njeru municipality, located in Uganda's Buikwe district, is a scenic area where the River Nile flows out of Lake Victoria. While the locale attracts tourists, who go swimming, canoeing, and rafting in these waters, the region has also seen a drastic transformation in recent years, drawing large industries that provide employment opportunities for Uganda's young population. They often get work as machine operators or production workers, sorting and packaging at these factories. But while economically beneficial to some, these industries are also increasing pollution in the water, air, and environment—threatening the health of the region for tourists, youth workers, and long-time residents alike.
Since 2019, through the Uganda Investment Authority, the Ugandan government has allocated 956 acres of land for industries in Buikwe district as part of Vision 2040, an economic initiative that aims to transform Uganda into a modern and prosperous country within 30 years. But many locals suggest the government has fallen short in regulating these industries, leading to disastrous repercussions: It’s almost certain you’ll engage with some form of factory pollution in the region, via inhaling smog or coming into contact with the polluted water that flows into the Nile.
While Uganda’s 2019 National Environmental Act requires industries to treat their effluent before discharging it into water bodies, many businesses in the region do not comply. In Bujowali village, for example, the steel manufacturing company Pramukh Steel Limited releases wastewater into the Naava stream without proper treatment. Residents are concerned about the pollution, which affects their main water source, and consequently, their health.
On a warm day in March, the wet season fully underway, three women stand akimbo, atop a drainage channel being constructed across the marram road from Pramukh factory. In the channel, about a dozen men are hard at work lifting stones and mixing sand and cement while a supervisor hovers over them.
One of the women is Wazemba Annet Jackline, a resident of Bujowali village, and a local area councilor. “This is the only clean water stream we have in the village,” she says. “But now, we cannot take the water without boiling it first. It is no longer safe, it's contaminated.”
The steel company not only releases dust and sludge into the region’s water and air, but also mill scale, which pollutes the air with small particles that can be ingested by people and animals in close proximity to the factory. Residents have reported cases of illnesses such as diarrhea, cough, and flu. There are also some unconfirmed cases of cancer and allegations of animals dying due to the pollution. What’s more, the company’s factory also releases wastewater with a foul smell during the dry season, and even larger quantities mixed with fecal matter during the rainy season, which flows into the lower end of the stream.
In March this year, after a series of negotiations, Pramukh agreed to build the water drainage channel in response to complaints from Bujowali’s residents. Unfortunately, the construction materials they’ve used cannot withstand the water flow from the factory or the region’s heavy rains. Residents say this is the third time the channel is being constructed, with the same materials, after previous attempts have collapsed.
“They are reconstructing in the same place every day. The type of cement they are using will take time to set, yet this is a water-logged area,” says Jackline, who is a civil engineer by profession. “I’m asking them to reconsider the type of cement they are using. As much as they are looking at cutting costs, the cement type I’m suggesting only hydrates when it rains, and the mixture gets stronger instead of being washed away.”
Her pleas, however, fall on deaf ears as the workers continue with their work.
On the frontlines of the environmental fight in the region is Girls for Climate Action, an eco-feminist movement founded in Jinja district, advocating for climate justice and action in Buikwe. The organization has partnered with the community to address industrial pollution and promote sustainable practices under the campaign “Toa Uchafu,” a Swahili word meaning, “remove the garbage,” a call to end industrial water pollution in Buikwe.
The campaign highlights how the region’s industries are not complying with Uganda’s National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) standards, says Viola Kataike, the organization’s advocacy lead. “[They] pollute the different eco-systems that the community—especially women and girls—depend on for their livelihoods,” she adds.
The factories have also led to the displacement of some of the region’s long-time residents. Kataike cites an example of a woman she says is currently being forced to leave her land, where her late husband is buried. “She is crying out,” she says. “How is she going to move her husband’s remains because now the land supposedly belongs to the factory? It’s traumatic.”
Girls for Climate Action has also carried out a situational analysis of the pollution levels for existing industries in Buikwe, measuring contamination in the different natural water sources. According to Kataike, the results were revealing. “These industries have taken the opportunity to release their waste and effluents into River Nile, but of course channel it through the streams that the communities fetch water from.”
This pollution is also affecting the farming community throughout the Buikwe district. Farmers report crop damage, animal deaths, and health problems such as itchy eyes and skin, as well as inflamed skin that turns ashy after contact with the contaminated water.
At a community meeting held in March at the Mubeeya cultural site in Nyenga in Njeru municipality, farmers expressed distress at the pollution of the Mubeeya stream caused by the sugar, spirits, and plastics manufacturing company, GM Sugar. The farmers, most of whom are rice growers, raised a number of complaints.
“During the night, you can't sleep, the water stinks,” says 44-year-old Godfrey Walusimbi, a farmer who has spent his whole life in Buikwe. “You can't give your cattle the water, if they drink it, our cattle fall sick. I lost two goats.”
Some farmers also say their crops are being burnt up by the chemicals now contaminating the ground. “The acid in the soil has killed the soil fertility and crops are drying up in the garden,” Walusimbi says.
In the town of Njeru itself, which is centrally located in Buikwe, councilor Ibriata Clarke says that a factory located next to a secondary school has water trenches that run through the school’s playfield. She also says some representatives have tried to speak to factory management but are constantly being sent away. “We’ve been told not to complain about what the factories are doing to our people,” she says—but, she adds, “Who are these people who are not seeing that our people in Njeru municipality are dying?”
A Buikwe district officer who asked that they remain unnamed but whose role offers relevant insight, says they have carried out several tests, and there is proof that industrial chemicals have polluted the water, soil, and air in the locality. According to them, “While the recommended chemical oxygen demand in the water is 50, in Njeru, it is much higher, which is proof the water is polluted.” With residents reporting headaches, stomach pains, and skin reactions, the immediate solution, they say, is to stop using the water, concluding that it is corrosive.
However, they added that farmers who use agro chemicals and pesticides to kill weeds are also partially to blame. “During the rainy season, those chemicals sink into the sand and the water runs off into the streams,” they explain.
As environmental incidents continue to gain attention in the district, a court case between a local farmer, Allan John Ddamulira, and GM Sugar has come to underscore Buikwe’s industrial pollution problem.
Ddamulira claims that GM Sugar's discharge of toxic waste into the Kinywa water stream killed his fish and damaged his farm, which consisted of eight fishponds located on 10 acres. “Unknowingly to us, the water that was flowing through the stream that day had been polluted with molasses from the sugar factory,” he says. “So, we woke up to a fish kill. All the fish were floating, dead.”
In September 2022, Ddamulira registered a formal complaint with NEMA in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala.“Results comparing the stream water and the water from the ponds revealed there was an oxygen deficiency that resulted in the fish kill at the farm,” Ddamulira says.
Following their investigation, NEMA issued a stop order to GM Sugar to cease the company’s release of effluent into the stream, but Ddamulira says the order has never been respected. He has since taken GM Sugar to court, and has accused NEMA of withholding evidence that would be useful in his case.
In February 2024, through his lawyers, Ddadmulira wrote to NEMA requesting that the environmental authority share their findings with them, to be presented in court. But in a letter dated March 22, 2024, NEMA’s Executive Director, Barirega Akankwasah, stated that the matter was still under criminal investigation and consequently would not hand over copies of the technical expert report, stop order, or photographs taken at the site. He added that their refusal was protected by law. When contacted for comment, NEMA spokesperson Noame Karekaho responded, “Discussing the issue of GM Sugar and degradation of the environment are considered ‘subjudice.’”
GM Sugar’s Head of Legal has also denied Ddadmulira’s claims, saying the company has the latest technology from Germany handling its waste. “The company waste does not flow to the stream as the complainant claims. We usually take our waste to the Buikwe Industrial Park.” In court, Ddamulira produced a video of a GM Sugar vehicle pouring waste near the fish farm, disputing this was the case. However, GM Sugar argued that the “errant driver was asked by the villagers to release the waste into the road to allegedly reduce the dust which was about 15km from the fish pond.”
Still, Ddamulira fights on. “We need to pursue this case to get these people to understand that what they are doing is wrong and get justice for myself and many other farmers suffering because of this pollution,” he says. He claims he has lost 800m Uganda Shillings, or $218,000, as a result of the fish kill.
He also isn’t alone in this fight—and despite her frustrations, Kataike believes they are making an impact as community members increasingly voice their concerns. This is happening not just at meetings, but through peaceful protests and demands for action, including demands for more drainage channels. She adds, however, that not everyone has been supportive of their work: According to her, some community leaders are undermining their efforts by supporting the companies for selfish gains. “It’s a huge problem, especially with the small bribes that they give to a few leaders,” she says. “They also give false promises, offering positions to those who oppose them.”
Rather than slow their efforts, however, this has only further fueled them. Girls for Climate Action continues to raise awareness and empower the community to push the factories to adhere to the set environmental standards and to stop polluting, especially water sources. While Kataike expresses disappointment that the pollution persists, she promises their campaign against it will do the same. “If we don't act now, then when?” she asks. “Should we wait for the rest of the people to die, or should we support the community to create justice?”
[post_title] => One Ugandan Village's Fight Against Industrial Pollution
[post_excerpt] => “Who are these people who are not seeing that our people are dying?”
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