Imagine a world where instead of chopping down forests to make paper, it was created from the billions of leaves that fall from trees at the end of their life.
This is the inspiration behind Releaf Paper, the brainchild of Ukrainian entrepreneur Valentyn Frechka, who spent years refining and perfecting a method for doing just this – developing a line of paper-based products.
Frechka first thought of using leaves to make paper at the age of 16 for a school project. While testing materials such as grass and straw as alternative sources of cellulose, his attention turned to the nearby Carpathian forest.
Despite early failures, Frechka persevered until his process was viable and in 2021 he was joined by cofounder Oleksandr Sobolenko to help commercialise the leaf-to-paper production process.
With deforestation a pressing issue globally, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates the pulp and paper industry uses between 33–40 per cent of all industrial wood traded globally to make products such as office and catalogue paper, glossy paper, and tissue and paper-based packaging.
As well as protecting forests, part of the Frechka’s mission is to inject some much-needed sustainability into paper manufacturing by reducing C02 emissions as well as water and electricity use.
But he says his production process doesn’t just save trees. It also offers the chance to recycle the leafy bio-waste that would otherwise be collected from urban spaces such as parks and gutters where it can choke drains or spark fires.
According to Releaf, these leaves can be easily collected and are available all year round.
To make them into paper, the leaves are gathered from locations where they would otherwise be classified as biowaste. They are often burned, which creates polluting emissions of carbon monoxide and other harmful gases.