From Discarded Clothes to Eco Bags: How Kashi is Healing Its Ghats
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Humans of kashi / 2 weeks
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- 2 min read
In the sacred city of Varanasi, where devotion meets the Ganga every single day through offerings, rituals and countless prayers. But beneath the beauty of the ghats lies an unnoticed challenge: the heaps of discarded clothes and fabrics left behind by devotees after rituals. When IAS officer Akshat Verma was posted in Varanasi, he noticed that these discarded clothes which was once part of someone’s faith now ended up polluting the river or piling up along the steps of the ghats. Instead of treating it as mere waste, he saw an opportunity for change. Through this Mission, he launched an initiative to collect, clean and repurpose these clothes. The fabrics were stitched into eco-friendly carry bags by women from local self-help groups. He teamed up with the Hope Welfare Foundation, their ‘Green Army’ helped the IAS officer set his plan into motion. “We wanted to make the ghats cleaner and empower local women at the same time,” he shared. Today, thousands of such bags are distributed to shopkeepers, replacing plastic and giving a second life to fabrics once left behind. Beyond the environmental benefit, the project has also become a livelihood source for dozens of women who now earn through stitching. These are not just bags they are stories of devotion, transformed into sustainability. Impact: As the Ganga flows endlessly, so does this circular journey from faith to fabric to future.