Well, This is a ReLeaf to Hear!

November 1, 2024 Georgia Low

By Georgia Low

November 1, 2024

Around the world, 15 billion trees are cut down each year to make paper. [1] But what about if we didn’t need to cut down the trees in order to make paper? Well, you best beleaf that a company has managed this!

Releaf Paper was founded in 2021 in Ukraine as a result of the collaboration of a talented scientist and a successful 16-year-old entrepreneur, in 5 years Releaf Paper has grown into an international dynamic startup with offices in Paris and Kyiv, with global ambitions to expand further. In 2022, the company opened an office in France and began to set up its own production. Releaf Paper actively uses contract mills in Ukraine and the EU to turn green waste into valuable raw materials for the produce of paper and packaging industry, utilising Releaf’s groundbreaking technology. [2]

Figure 1: Image of fallen leaves. [3]

Releaf is Revolutionising Paper Production for a Sustainable Future

Releaf are co-funded by the European Union and now have customers in over 20 European countries and have partnered with companies such as WWF, Google and the European Innovation Council. They have been recognised and won multiple awards for their products and ingenuity, including:

Winner at the Google for startups 2022
Finalist for The Sustainability Awards 2023
Finalist at the Green Alley Award 2024

By only using the green waste that trees produce every year, they are saving millions of trees from deforestation. Releaf Paper follows sustainability – from the raw materials they use, the technology behind the processing, and in saving resources during production. All this makes their products sustainable and their impact on the environment, including carbon dioxide emissions, minimal.

The Environmental Impact of Releaf Paper

A lot of the things we buy come packaged in some form of paper, cardboard or plastic. If all of these packaging items were made sustainably and from recycled materials that could be reused or recycled again, we could drastically reduce our waste that goes to landfill each year. Studies estimate about 1.4 billion trees end up in landfills every year, due to product packaging and other paper waste. According to statistics, there are currently an estimated 3 trillion trees around the globe, but only about 1.15 billion of them are planted each year. That means we have a long way to go before we have enough forests on Earth to keep up with human demand for wood products, like furniture or paper pulp. Approximately 5.2 million trees are planted each day worldwide, but more trees are cut down than are replenished.

There are many types of trees that are used for different purposes. Commonly planted trees include:

Eucalyptus: These trees are used for making paper, construction, fuel, and timber. They can also be used for landscaping and as windbreaks.
Douglas fir: These trees are among the most common varieties of fir trees in North America. Their bark is smooth and dark brown with light-coloured sapwood that turns white when it dries out. Douglas Fir wood is used for making furniture and other wood products.
Larch: Larch trees grow in cold climates with cold winters like those found in Scandinavia, where they get their name from the Latin word “larchos,” meaning “of the Larch.” These evergreen conifers are often grown as Christmas trees because they have a soft texture on the outside but hard interior bark that makes them ideal for allowing air circulation.

Trees are the lungs of the planet. They provide people with oxygen, clean air, and shelter from the sun’s rays—all the things needed to survive. But if we don’t care for our forests, they could be gone within a few decades.

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