Phool: where marginalised women turn temple flowers into incense, bio-thermocol & vegan leather 30 stades
“Abhi nahi niklenge toh kabhi nahi
niklenge (If I don't step out now, I won't
do so ever),” retorted 25-year-old Sujata Devi as her shaky father expressed
his dilemma about letting her take up a job.
Sujata's husband had abandoned her
and their two kids for another woman and she had come to live at her father's.
"I heard good things about Phool so I decided to join them. But since the factory (in Bhauti on the outskirts of Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh) was far away from my place, and my daughter was only a few months old, my father was reluctant about sending me there. I told Ankit Bhaiyya (the owner) about my predicament and he arranged a bus facility for us,: she says.
"Phool has given me respect and confidence, that's why I love working here. I think I can now fulfill the dream of making my daughter an IAS officer and my son an engineer."
Mamta, another worker, says, "When I joined Phool, I didn’t think I could make incense sticks like others. But slowly and steadily I picked up the craft and began enjoying working with flowers and hand-rolling. Now I love it so much that even if I am thirsty and the water bottle is right in front of me, I can’t get my hands off rolling the incense sticks until I’m finished with the lot."
Shabana Khan, who joined Phool two years ago, points out that it’s not just about money but also about working with good people in a happy environment. "At my home, there’s my mother and three siblings. I lost my father 4 years ago. I had to give up my education and start working at the age of 16. There is tremendous pressure, but when I come to work here, I feel relaxed, positive, and satisfied."
Phool has so far provided livelihood to 80 women from marginalised sections. Pic: through Phool
Phool.co has so far given livelihood to 80 women, all from marginalised sections of the society and some of who were earlier into manual scavenging.
What's more, 19 children of these
families have been able to start school, thanks to the livelihood offered by
Phool. All these women workers are provided with commuting facilities to the
workplace, given insurance cover, offered medical benefits and now have their
own bank accounts.
“We empower local women and that's the cornerstone of our scheme," emphasises Ankit Agarwal, 30, who founded Phool.co in 2017 with a couple of workers. His target now is to employ more than 1,000 women in his production unit by 2022.
The company has received accolades
by many experts. One among them is Dr Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT-Kanpur,
who says, “Innovation in product development aside, Phool.co has given a life
of dignity to dozens of women and they did this despite having an option of
automating the process."
How it all began
Back in 2015 on Makar Sankranti, Agarwal was sitting on the ghats of Ganga in Kanpur with his Czech friend when he saw truckloads of discarded temple flowers being dumped into the river and their colour washing off.
He watched hundreds of Hindu devotees taking holy dip in the river and performing aachman (sipping water while reciting the names of Lord Vishnu) despite the visible muck.
A pull factor for Phool's products is their origin in temple flowers. Pic: through Phool
The sight unnerved him and jolted
his conscience. Agarwal, an IIT engineer who was 27 then, knew that the
pesticide-laden flowers would wreak havoc in the river by creating toxic
compounds. These would be affecting its biological oxygen demand (BOD) level,
thereby posing a threat to riverine creatures and aquatic ecosphere.
Agarwal decided to do something
about it, though he didn't know how to go about it. He met a cross section of
people and stakeholders: farmers, botany professors, farmers, composting
experts, organic fertiliser producers, flower traders and temple managements.
After 14 months of research in makeshift labs, they hit upon the best 17-ingredient recipe to turn flowers into bio manure, using earthworms.
Interestingly, one of the ingredients in the recipe was coffee residue which they collected from the local coffee shops.
They used waste that helped enhance the NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) value of the fertiliser. After the compost, they started working on hand-crafted incense sticks from the floral waste. "I was very clear in my mission: to recycle the waste coming from places of worship.
"People thought we had lost it as talking about recycling rotten flowers sounded too fanciful a proposal,” Agarwal recalls.
But nothing could waver his dauntless spirit. He chucked his job as an automation scientist at cybersecurity firm Symantec and started a flowercycling venture.
Ankit Agarwal quit his job at Symantec to start Phool. Pic: through Phool
It was not a cakewalk for Agarwal to convince his family about the never-before-heard-of scheme. The temple authorities also took time to understand the "weird idea", but once they did, they extended their unflinching support to him.
Agarwal rented a farm on the outskirts of Kanpur city and set the ball rolling. Now, Phool has its own facility in Bhauti and it collects about 8.4 tonnes of flowers from temples and mosques in and around Kanpur.
"Since its inception, the social enterprise has flower-cycled 2,753 metric tons of temple flowers and has offset 275.3 kg of pesticide residues," claims Agarwal.
Phool also started a second production facility in Tirupati in 2018. And how did the lockdown impact them?
"We ensured the supply chain didn't face any impediment due to COVID-19. We sourced flower waste directly from horticulture farmers and paid them well during the crisis."
Cool compost!
To make organic manure, the flowers are composted with the help of earthworms and it is meticulously packed. “The first thing we came up with was vermicompost. For six months, we tested different dungs of cow, chicken, sheep, horse and goat to get the best nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium value of the vermicompost. And then got the ‘17 natural ingredient recipe’," points out Agarwal.
Phool team members at the unit at Bhauti on the outskirts of Kanpur. Pic: through Phool
To ensure that chemicals do not find their way into the products, the discarded flowers are first sorted, segregated, then cleaned and sprayed with bio culture. The water used for this process is saved and reused later to make the compost. A 1-kg pack of Phool Pure vermicompost is priced at Rs105.
Awesome aroma
After the success of vermicompost,
Agarwal toyed with the idea of making incense sticks. That's how Sticks and
Stones came into being. ‘Sticks and Stones’ is a range of hand-rolled natural
incense sticks and cones made from floral waste. The sticks and cones are
dipped in pure essential oils, sourced organically.
“There's an element of sacredness attached to our products that have started people drawing in to them. The fact that flowers are collected from temples is a huge catch," says Agarwal.
The 13 aromas range from nargis, lavender, loban, tulsi, jasmine, orange, rose, patchouli, to citronella and lemongrass. There are 40 sticks in each pack, and each stick weighs a little over a gram. "Each stick is around 25.4 cm long. They have a long burning time and are natural air fresheners and their aroma serves as one of the best stress relievers," Agarwal underlines.
Phool also makes 100 percent
chemical-free gulaal (dry colour
powder mostly used on Holi festival) from natural ingredients: flowers, natural
herbs, wheat and rice powder, food colour, and natural essential oils. It has
received a stamp from Institute for Industrial Research and Toxicology (IIRT)
for its skin friendliness.
Biodegradable thermocol & vegan
leather
Having worked on compost and
incense products, Agarwal and his team invented the world’s first-ever
biodegradable thermocol - Florafoam. Made from waste flowers, it is being used
to package electronic goods like air conditioners and TV sets.
"It is biodegradable and can
be buried in your garden after use. We have set up a production unit with a
capacity of 11 tonnes a day in Kanpur. Florafoam is 27 percent less costly than
the conventional and toxic thermocol,” says Agarwal, who was nominated for the
Goalkeepers Awards by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The startup was also presented PETA India’s ‘Best Innovation in Vegan Fashion’ award for the cruelty-free bio-material Fleather, which is being deemed as an alternative to animal leather.
Fleather is made by converting biomass waste rich in cellulose. Since it has a high tensile strength, it can be moulded and dyed in numerous shades.
Phool raised $1.4 million in a
pre-Series A funding round recently. The funding round was led by IAN Fund and
San Francisco-based Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation.
Agarwal says, “We will utilize the
funds to give more impetus to the research and increase the operations.”
Earlier, the enterprise had raised Rs 3.38 crore in a seed round from Social
Alpha (FISE), DRK Foundation, IIT Kanpur and Balmer Lawrie, among others.
Initially, the focus of Phool.co
was on exports to Germany and Switzerland, but now the growing demand in the
domestic market has boosted its revenues. "The demand and acceptance of
eco-friendly products are rising in the local market and so, we are
concentrating more on it. With e-commerce retailers, it has become easier to do
business," says Agarwal.
The start-up has received several
international recognitions including the United Nations Young Leaders Award for
Sustainable Development Goals, United Nations Momentum of Change Award at COP
2018, Asia Sustainability Award 2020, Hong Kong, Alquity Transforming Lives
Awards, London, Falling Walls Venture Sustainability Cluster Award, Berlin.
What started as a modest firm has made its place on the international business map. “You can turn your conviction into reality if you have full confidence in your plan,” Agarwal signs off.
(Tuhina Banerjee is a Lucknow-based writer and teacher.)
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