Katowice, December 12: India's 'Help Us Green' was among the 15 recipients of the Momentum of Change award by UN Climate Change -- the body designated by United Nations to address the climate change crisis. Help Us Green is a private group which collects floral wastes from temples in Uttar Pradesh, along with the flowers washed ashore of holy river Ganga. The flower wastes are recycled to produce incense, organic fertilizers and biodegradable packaging material.

The Indian firm was awarded with the UN honour for not only recycling floral waste, but also for providing employment to women living as manual scavengers. The dejected women are trained to produce the recycled products and earn a respectable livelihood. NGT Slaps Rs 5 Crore Penalty on SIDCO for Pollution in Jammu and Kashmir's Basantar River.

Over eight million tonnes of flowers are discarded in the river every year for religious purposes. This is contributing to the pollution of the Ganges, which provides drinking water for over 420 million people.

Help Us Green has come up with the world's first profitable solution to the monumental temple waste problem: flowercycling.

Women working with Help Us Green collect floral-waste daily from temples. The waste is up-cycled to produce organic fertilizers, natural incense and biodegradable packaging material.

Till date, 11,060 metric tonnes of temple-waste has been flowercycled and 110 metric tonnes of chemical pesticides that enter the river through temple waste have been offset.

So is the income of 73 manual scavenger families has increased at least six-fold. A total of 365 families have been impacted by Help Us Green through increased living standards and stable incomes.

By 2021, Help Us Green, which plans to expand to Bangladesh, and Nepal, aims to provide livelihoods to 5,100 women and recycle 51 tonnes of temple waste daily.

(With IANS inputs)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 12, 2018 07:04 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).