Why I do this business is, or how I can serve the community is,
by being able to give them an opportunity to work, a fair opportunity.
I cannot be everywhere, I cannot control what happens.
But I can at least make sure that everyone has that opportunity.
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So, my name is Ankit Agarwal.
I was born and brought up in Kanpur Uttar Pradesh, that is India.
Then I started this company Kanpur Flower Cycling Private Limited,
where we collect waste flowers from temples and
convert them into eco-friendly products that have wide markets and
that replace already existing chemical-based products.
[MUSIC]
I was in Kanpur, the place where I was born and brought up, and
I had invited my Czech friend, Kuba who was with me.
That day it was Makar Sankranti, which is an Indian festival that
marks the ending of winters and welcoming of summers.
So all the farmers, children, mothers, everyone,
takes a dip in the river Ganges, in that dirty slimy water.
We didn't even know to touch the water, it was so dirty.
And I started talking about the River Ganges.
I think I told him about the religious significance of the river Ganges.
And he asked me a question, if this river is so sacred, why is it so polluted?
I blamed the fecal sludge, the industrial waste, the household waste and everything.
And he asked me a question, why don't you do something about it and
I was like, this is the Ganges.
How can anyone do anything about it?
And the moment I said this,
a nearby temple dumped in a truckloads of flour in the river.
And there was this grayish chemical layer that was formed on the water and
I was a, wow.
I had never even thought of temple waste as pollution.
We Indians like, have been doing this for centuries.
Every year,
we Indians put in about 8 million tons of these flowers in the waters.
All the pesticides that are used to grow these flowers mixes with the river water
making it highly toxic.
That is the leading cause of diarrhea, hepatitis and severe cholera across India
and Bangladesh where the water flows, and no one has ever thought about this.
So I started talking to all the stakeholders involved in the supply
chain of the flowers, the farmers, the markets, what happens to these flowers.
Finally, I decided to form a company where we can collect these flowers and
do some products.
We started making incense out of Temple flowers.
We make incense that are completely chemical free,
which are hand rolled the natural essential oils.
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Luckily, one day I came across this strange organism that had developed upon
the pile of one of our unused flowers.
And we were able to make a material which behaves completely like leather and
is made from hay and flowers.
This is a material completely made from waste,
has a superior life than leather, little animal leather,
you have a fixed size height, and it takes, animal takes three years to grow.
With our experiments and our r&d you can do the same thing in 27 days.
So Styrofoam is the fifth biggest pollutant on Earth.
As of now, mankind does not know, where to recycle,
you have to either compress it, or burn it, or put it in soil.
And once you put it in soil, it stays there for more than 1000 years.
So we've been able to, make a biodegradable, home compostable alternate
to Styrofoam made from flowers, and, its, price effective.
So this whole cycle of the flowers was complete
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When we started, at that point of time, we would struggle finding people who would
want to work with us, pick up flowers, segregate them.
One day these two women, they came and they were very happy to work with us.
This went on for a month that they happily completed all the work.
I asked them like, why?
What motivates you to be, so then they told me
about the job that they were doing, that they were manual scavengers.
They will go home to home, pick up human excreta, keep it upon their heads and
dispose it off.
>> They used to be manual scavengers who scraped the feces with their bare hands.
So, in that profession, you can just imagine there is no dignity and for
livelihood, they need to struggle a lot.
>> They said that no one ever gave them another option to work,
they had to do this.
And even their children will have to get into this.
And when they started working with us, first of all, they don't have to go to
home to home, they just have to come to a single workplace, that's one.
Second, they felt good about themselves, that they're working
with temple flowers and they felt that they're helping doing some god's work.
And they'll help clean the river Ganges which is a goddess
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We'll be able to do around 7200 woman.
But I've taken set that goal of 5000, but
I believe this change will not happen in this generation.
It will happen in the next generation when the kids of the woman
that we're able to employ start going to school.
The next generation will be liberated from scavenging.
Seed has been that pushing,
that has helped us understand the different processes, different systems and
how the company can be managed in a better way so that we can get our full potential.
The communication gap that was there is being a bridge.
Everyone knows what the company is doing and what is in it for them.
>> We all share a common intent.
We share a common intent of flowers cycling, we share a common intent of women
employment, we share common views about the society and
that is why all of us are working together to achieve a goal.
We all want to see it flourish.
>> The seed a raise,
we almost be seven times of the revenue that we're doing as a factories come up.
They already secured orders from biggest household brand names in the country for
our chloroform packaging.
So now we're just waiting for the factories to be set up and
start the supplies.
[MUSIC]
Problems will only be solved if they can solve themselves, if they are sustainable.
If solving the problem can bring you money, then more and
more people will get into this thing, right?
Only then the problem will be solved, many people, many times people ask me,
like, don't you feel that this person is doing,
is trying to replicate your model and do you feel the threat?
I always say, see the problem so huge.
You need at least 10,000 people like me to solve this problem.
I think that's the equation
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