NEHA GAUR AND ANUYA VERMA
Abstract
India is a religious country where worshiping and offering to deities is an important ritual. After the commencement of worship, offered leaves, loose flowers and garlands often become dry or decay and their disposal becomes a sore issue. Most temples dispose of leftover Prasad, flowers, incense sticks, coconut husks and more which ultimately become a part of either municipal solid waste or get directly thrown into water bodies. This paper investigates the amount of solid waste generated by the temples in a particular month of Monsoon or Sharvan according to the Hindi calendar from Shiva temples in the Bhilwara region. The total waste accumulation ranges between 220 kg to 230 kg on Mondays, 150 to 170 kg on Wednesdays and around 190 to 270 kg on Saturdays. The total amount of waste accumulated in around one month was 2470.43 kg with about 93% of it being biodegradable which can be easily decomposed or recycled thus reducing the waste management cost. The outcome of this study indicates that proper management of temple wastes can have several benefits like high-quality manure and reusability of biodegradable wastes, making temple tourism more sustainable and eco-friendlier.