Review on approaches to floral waste management for sustainable environment

Abstract

Urbanization and increasing population has lead to one such undeniable crisis of waste management in the world. Solid waste management (SWM) systems in India lacks proper infrastructure and standard. Most common method to dispose of waste is landfilling and dumping it into water bodies. Continuous practices of improper handling of waste has created some environmental issues such as water and soil pollution. Toxic and harmful gases, leachates are constantly produced which eventually degrade natural resources and upon human interaction can cause some ill effects. Majority of this solid waste produced is biodegradable in nature constituting agricultural and domestic waste. One prime waste which degrades water bodies is floral waste accumulated from temples and various ceremonies. Nearly, 300 MT of flowers are discarded daily altogether. As per an estimate, 108,000 big and small temples and other religious places present in India, but this number can be very high in reality. Along with that, flowers are most common decorative item in different ceremonial functions. Where floral waste management lacks proper guidelines and disposing regulation, efforts on a small scale can be made to reuse and recycle it as much as possible. As floral waste contains some of the qualitative values such as essential oil, pigments and substrate quality, this review here focuses on different approaches to use it in a way to have sustainable products for a better environment.