India’s festive season is often marked by color, fragrance, and flowers. From marigold garlands at temples to roses and jasmine used in offerings, flowers are an integral part of many celebrations and rituals.
But once the prayers are over and the festivities wind down, large quantities of these flowers are left behind. For a handful of Indian entrepreneurs, that has raised a simple question: can something that has already been part of an important ritual be given a useful second life?
Over the years, startups and small enterprises across the country have begun collecting floral waste and turning it into incense, compost, soaps, decorative products and even newer biomaterials. Here are four such ventures looking at flowers not as something to discard, but as a resource that can be reworked.
1. Phool
In Kanpur, the idea behind Phool began with a sight that stayed with founder Ankit Agarwal: flowers from temples making their way into the Ganga. Agarwal, along with Prateek Kumar, eventually founded Phool in 2017, building on an idea he had begun exploring a couple of years earlier.
In Kanpur, Phool collects temple flowers and transforms them into incense and other products, while also developing flower-based biomaterials.
Photograph: (Green Queen Media)
The startup collects discarded temple flowers and processes them into products including incense sticks, incense cones and other wellness products. Its research has also led to Fleather, a biomaterial developed from flower waste as an alternative to animal leather.
What started as an attempt to address flower waste has therefore grown into a larger circular-economy experiment, combining waste collection, product development and livelihoods.
2. HolyWaste
For Maya Vivek and Minal Dalmia, the idea came from seeing that Hyderabad needed a structured way to deal with discarded flowers. The two founded HolyWaste, a venture under Oorvi Sustainable Concepts, in 2018.
The women-led enterprise works with temples, flower vendors, event planners and decorators to collect floral waste. The flowers are then sorted, dried and processed through what the company calls its “FloRejuvenation” process.
Depending on the material, the flowers can be turned into products such as incense, natural fertilisers, scented cones and soaps. The model also creates work for women involved in sorting and processing the flowers, making the venture as much about livelihoods as waste management.
3. Aaruhi Enterprise
In Gurugram, Poonam Sehrawat noticed something while visiting a temple: the flowers offered during prayers were being discarded soon after. She began exploring whether they could be collected and put to another use.
HolyWaste collects floral waste from temples, vendors and events, creating products while generating work for women involved in processing. Photograph: (Unesco)
In 2019, Sehrawat started Aaruhi Enterprise with Pinki Yadav, focusing on collecting floral waste from temples across Delhi-NCR.
The flowers are separated from other waste, processed and handcrafted into products such as dhoop, incense sticks, idols, decorative pieces and air fresheners. Aaruhi also works with women, training them to make floral products and creating opportunities for home-based work.
For Sehrawat, what began with a few collection boxes gradually became a small enterprise built around two ideas: reducing floral waste and creating livelihoods.
4. Yuvan
In Himachal Pradesh, Ravinder Prashar took a slightly different route. An entrepreneur from Una, Prashar, worked with Dr YS Parmar, University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, to develop incense sticks using flowers offered at temples.
The initiative, launched under the name Yuvan, was supported by Himachal Pradesh’s Chief Minister’s Startup Scheme. The resulting incense uses natural portions and essential oils from flowers, without charcoal or synthetic chemicals. Even the unused floral material can be turned into compost.
The prayers may be over, but the flowers can still have a purpose. By reworking what was once discarded, these ventures are giving floral waste a meaningful second life. Photograph: (Indian Wedding Decor Inspiration)
The project shows how a familiar material can move through a different cycle: from a flower offered during worship to something that can later become part of another everyday ritual.
For these founders, the idea is not to change the traditions around flowers, but to rethink what happens to them afterwards. In doing so, they are showing how something deeply familiar can find a new purpose, long after the prayers and celebrations are over.
