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#10 Indian entrepreneur “adds life to paper” by including seeds

In India, Seedpaper India has produced paper Karnataka flags with embedded seeds to help South Indians celebrate Rajyothsava while creating a carbon-consuming plant and not contributing to the region’s plastics waste crisis.

Seedpaper India was founded in 2014 by Roshan Ray, who told The Hindu he wanted to “add life to paper.” He was already familiar with sustainable practices from his family’s business, Bangalore Paper and Pulp Mills. “We are environmentally conscious at the mill. We do not fell trees to produce paper. We approach small industries and garment factories for waste fabric that would otherwise go to the landfill,” he says.

The embedded seeds include tulsi, marigold, tomato, ladies finger, morning glory and daisy white. “We use spinach, blue berry, tomato, beetroot and turmeric with soya-based ink to dye the paper. For the Rajyothsava flag we have used tomato and beetroot for red and turmeric for yellow,” he adds.

Rajyothsava celebrates the creation of the state of Karnataka. Roy says he sold about 10,000 flags.
More on the story, here.