During national day festivities and other occasions, you might see crowds of people waving hundreds or thousands of little flags in celebration. But when the fun is over, those flags are often discarded, littering the ground.
But what if they didn't become trash? What if they contained seeds that with a little care grew into a plant? That's the creative idea of one Indian nature lover with a master's degree in forensic biotechnology — infusing seeds into disposable gifts.
Mansi Shah launched her venture Gift Green a year ago, quitting her day job with a vision to do something good for the environment. She started with creating soil and seeds molded in the form of modaks, or sweet dumplings for the Ganesh festival. Then she created seed-infused rangoli, which are clay art forms used during Diwali festivals.
This prompted her to go forward with new ideas. Shah told the Times of India in an interview that she was inspired by a Japanese custom where seeds are attached at a corner of the daily newspaper and readers are informed about how to plant them. Her father had a printing press and she took his help to implement the idea of placing seeds inside the paper.
Soon her venture was making paper stationery items like cards, bookmarks, wedding invites, diaries, journals and coasters infused with seeds of different plants.
These items come with instructions on how to plant the gifts. The paper's color corresponds to what plant seeds it contains; for example, red is tomato and green is basil.
People are lauding this idea as a good move for the environment. Rajashree Kuttisankaran wrote in a Facebook post:
