Alessandra Moreira worked as an administrative assistant in Altamira, an oversized municipality in the Brazilian Amazon — larger than Portugal or Greece. Burned out and facing anxiety and depression, she left her job, but was unsure of what would come next. “I was having panic attacks and couldn’t identify what was happening to me,” she told Mongabay. Then, a suggestion from her brother changed everything: Why not try making seed paper? Altamira, in the state of Pará, is the most deforested municipality in the Brazilian Amazon. There, “development” is often a synonym for deforestation, environmental degradation, and sometimes violence, erupting from clashes between conservationists, loggers and land grabbers. Despite the local culture, Moreira founded Ecoplante, a company that makes plantable seed paper — recycled sheets embedded with seeds that can typically grow into vegetables, herbs, flowers and, in Ecoplante’s specific case, native Amazonian vegetation, too. What began as a personal healing project has grown into an example of how creativity, entrepreneurship and sustainability can coexist in one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems. Plantable seed paper is made by transforming discarded paper into new sheets infused with plant seeds. The process starts with recycled pulp mixed with water, then spread over a fine-mesh screen and layered with seeds, from herbs like basil and arugula, to flowers like daisies. Once dried, the paper can be written on, used, and later planted. When it decomposes, the seeds germinate, turning what would have been waste into greenery. In 2023, Moreira and her brother…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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