Source: Positive News
A chemical engineering student will set up a social enterprise in India to use flowers discarded from religious ceremonies and holidays
From festivals to weddings, flowers take centre stage in many celebrations in India. In fact, they are so dominant they are thought to form as much as a third of the country’s total solid waste.
The statistic inspired 27-year-old PhD chemical engineer Parimala Shivaprasad: she has launched a company called Retra to make essential oils from the flower waste.Beginning with a pilot project at a temple in her home city of Bengaluru, Shivaprasad will extract the essential oils from rose and jasmine petals. The remaining biomass will be used as compost.
Retra, which means fragrance in Sanskrit, will be run as a social enterprise, employing local women in the process and giving a share of profits to the temple. The compost will be used to fertilise the temple’s vegetable…
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