As part of religious celebrations in India, Hindu worshippers leave collections of flowers at temples every day. Once these flowers start to wilt, the vast majority of them are disposed of in sacred bodies of water such as the river Ganges. Every year, about eight million tons of this floral waste ends up in the country’s rivers, further exacerbating the levels of pollution these waters are already subject to.

In a bid to help tackle pollution in the Ganges, entrepreneur Ankit Agarwal launched Phool (which means flower), a startup that collects tonnes of floral waste from the sacred river and recycles it into paper, incense, and watercolors — all while providing jobs to local communities.

Made up of a team of 100 mostly female workers, the startup’s mission is to remove floral waste from one of the most polluted stretches of India’s holy river in the northern city of Kanpur.

Indians typically offer flowers at temples as a mark of devotion and, as noted by Agarwal, millions of tons of those offerings end up in the river each year, as it’s considered unholy to throw them into bins once they have been presented at temples.

“All the pesticides and insecticides that were used to grow these flowers mix with the river water, making it highly toxic,” he said. To help prevent that from happening, Phool employees pluck out the discarded flowers near the river bank and gather them from temples to repurpose them into goods that can be used for the Hindu festival of Holi.

In addition to curbing the river’s pollution, Phool has also created job opportunities for local women, who previously used to work as waste pickers or were unemployed. Sujata Devi, one of Phool’s employees, said, “People see me as an independent woman who can do a job and also run her household. So, this has brought a change in my life.”