Bhubaneswar: The festival of Holi, known as the vibrant festival of colours, is set to bring not only joy but also a natural floral aroma to Bhubaneswar this year, thanks to an innovative eco-friendly initiative by the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC).
For the first time, the BMC has launched organic ‘gulal’ (coloured powder) made entirely from recycled flower waste collected from the city’s temples. This chemical-free alternative promises safer celebrations, free from the skin irritations and environmental hazards often associated with synthetic colours. The initiative is a result of six months of dedicated efforts by the BMC, which has been separately collecting used flowers from approximately 700 temples across the capital. These flowers, which previously contributed to littering roads, choking drains, and polluting water bodies, are now transformed into valuable products.
“Around two quintals of flowers are generated daily from temples, which have been instructed not to dispose of them in water bodies and are instead being collected by specialised vehicles for processing. The civic body has already produced three quintals of gulal, with bulk packets hitting the market on Monday via a private agency partnered for production. Public feedback will be gathered to refine the product,” BMC Additional Commissioner Kailash Chandra Dash told TOI.
He further mentioned that incense sticks (‘dhup’) are being made from similar waste for the past year and are already sold commercially.
To expand the effort, plans are afoot to direct marriage halls, hotels, and banquet venues, major sources of floral waste worth lakhs of rupees, to hand over used decorations to sanitary workers instead of discarding them recklessly. At the household level, residents are encouraged to separate puja waste for collection and redirection to incense and gulal units, he added.
