Indigenous people\u00a0have used\u00a0leaves and other biological materials as tableware\u00a0for centuries,\u00a0however, this eco-friendly tradition has yet to be adopted in the modern Western world.\u00a0A German startup\u00a0called Leaf Republic\u00a0has set on a mission to popularize leaf tableware with their line of disposable but durable leaf plates,\u00a0which the team\u00a0claims are\u00a0as renewable and biodegradable as a leaf falling\u00a0from a tree.<\/p>\n
The plates have three layers\u00a0\u2013 the top and bottom sections\u00a0are composed\u00a0of\u00a0leaves\u00a0stitched\u00a0together with palm\u00a0fibers and the middle\u00a0is a carton-like material also made from leaves. The parts are combined without the use of glue or chemical binders, they are simply compressed\u00a0together with a machine press. The leaves come from a wild vine growing in\u00a0Asia and South\u00a0America.<\/p>\n
The resulting product is waterproof,\u00a0microwave-safe plate with a shelf life of approximately a year and a half.\u00a0It\u00a0can be used for a variety of foods, from dry snacks to hot soups and stews. The leaf plates can technically be washed and reused, but\u00a0Leaf Republic does not recommend that\u00a0because it could\u00a0negatively affect the product’s\u00a0stiffness.<\/p>\n
Once the leaf plates have served their purpose, they can be composted or simply discarded in nature. The leaf plates usually decompose within a month, which is a negligible amount of time compared to the 450 years needed to break down a single\u00a0plastic plate.<\/p>\n
The idea for the leaf\u00a0tableware\u00a0was conceived by Leaf Republic CEO\u00a0Pedram Zolgadri,\u00a0who\u00a0manufactured\u00a0the first leaf\u00a0plate prototypes\u00a0in his\u00a0living room with a\u00a0manually-operated\u00a0machine press. After more than four years of\u00a0research and development, the company has finally started production. The team has launched a crowdfunding campaign on\u00a0Kickstarter<\/a> to help them mass produce the plates and bring them to supermarket,\u00a0or least health food store,\u00a0shelves.<\/p>\n Leaf Republic managed to raise more than\u00a040 percent of their funding goal within their first week on the site. It is no surprise they are performing\u00a0so well, considering that one of their perks for crowdfunders is a lifetime supply of the leaf plates for just 34 euros. The team is excited at the prospect of\u00a0stepping up their production, but realize that this\u00a0could bring a set of whole new challenges for the project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Indigenous people\u00a0have used\u00a0leaves and other biological materials as tableware\u00a0for centuries,\u00a0however, this eco-friendly tradition has yet to be adopted in the modern Western world.\u00a0A German startup\u00a0called Leaf Republic\u00a0has set on a mission to popularize leaf tableware with their line of disposable but durable leaf plates,\u00a0which the team\u00a0claims are\u00a0as renewable and biodegradable as a leaf falling\u00a0from a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[12388],"supplier":[12387],"class_list":["post-36098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-tableware","supplier-leaf-republic-gmbh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36098"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=36098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}