One day we found ourselves standing outside our organization watching a livid priest pacing back and forth next to a pile of flowers. Upon enquiry we found that the garbage collector did not come to pick up the waste from the temple. 

We offered to help, the priest directed us towards the Yamuna river and said, “if you can get rid of my waste then I will pay you instead of the garbage collector”. So we made our way to the river. Upon arriving we saw the river polluted with all types of waste, from flowers to plastic. The river was infected by our waste. That is when we decided that our path of the employment program will begin here. 

Gathering waste flowers and recycling them, the name of this program became Avacayam, which is derived from a Sanskrit phrase ‘pushpa-avacaya’ which means gathering flowers.

Our recycling journey began in 2001 with recycling waste flowers from temples into Holi colors, agarbattis and compost; which we do till date. Since then we have ventured into other waste materials as well. Ranging from plastic, textile waste, paper, wood, foam electronic waste etc. 

Today, Avacayam Foundation has 100+ people with disabilities working with us and creating interesting products from waste materials. Our creative outlook has made it possible to work towards human development and environmental development giving a whole new meaning to Avacayam, where earlier it was literally gathering flowers, now metaphorically gathering flowers. Disability India