This Independence Day, turn your tricolour into a sapling

BENGALURU: Tricolour made of seed paper, which one can sow to raise saplings, is the flavour among Bengalureans this Independence Day.

These eco-friendly flags made by New Delhi based Krithika Saxena using biodegradable materials have been bought by over 4,000 Bengalureans in the past few days.

Krithika, a bio-technology engineer working with a corporate firm, came up with the flag idea as she was concerned about the increasing number of plastic flags during every Independence Day.

“Plastic flags ultimately end up in dustbins or on the roadside. I started working on the seed flag in July and the initial plan was to manufacture about 1,000 of them. Once I started floating seed flag availability messages on WhatsApp, I started getting requests not just from Delhi, but also from other parts of the country. Till date I have sold over 14,000 flags to people in many places, including Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Lucknow,” she added.

Krithika said from Bengaluru, many schools and individuals have made requests and she has couriered them the flags. “Each flag is priced at Rs 8 per piece and is 2x3 square inches in size. The base paper, made of waste cotton fibre, has tomato and chilli seeds embedded in it, and once sown, it grows as a plant even with minimum moisture in the soil. The idea is basically to reduce plastic or paper waste during IDay,” she added.

Supreeth M, a resident of Nagarbhavi, west Bengaluru, said the flag is handy and he likes its appearance as well. “I am waiting for I-Day to get over so that I can raise this flag as a sapling,” he added.

Krithika said she has now started getting requests from corporate companies in Bengaluru but she is not in a position to meet the demand given time constraints.