The campaign was supported by 255 Slovenians as well as 15 Slovenian socially and environmentally responsible companies and organisations.

The project's manager Bogdan Dobnik said that the DZS publishing house had contributed more than half of the money.

The candle is expected to be completed by the end of January. It will hit the shelves of flower shops of the Maribor funeral home and the Ljubljana Žale cemetery, with retail companies also expressing interest in the product, said the project's team.

Edina is completely locally manufactured, made from natural and renewable materials - recycled oil, glass and aluminium. The wax is made from local waste cooking oil, collected and processed at the Bolje company. The candle does not contain paraffin-based wax, which has been accused of giving off carcinogenic toxins.

The company is also launching a project which would aim at reducing the amount of plastic paraffin and electronic grave candles, an environmental nightmare, at both central cemeteries in Maribor and Ljubljana. The pilot project will introduce a system of returning glass candles to be cleaned and refilled with recycled wax.

In the beginning, Edina candles will be manufactured manually at the company. If the product turns out to be selling well, the company would wish to get additional workforce, including people with mental health problems who have a harder time finding a job.

Edina burns for two days, but the company could produce a candle that would last even longer, up to five days or more.

The Bolje company has been established by the Ozara Slovenija humanitarian NGO to get additional resources and meet social and environmental targets.

In the past four years, it has turned into one of the major organic waste collection services in the country and is the only licensed waste cooking oil processing service, producing award-winning natural scented candles Oilright.