It’s Time For the Traditional Leaf Plates to Make a Comeback

Remember the leaf bowls in which we used to eat pani puri? Or the banana leaf used in the traditional South Indian meals? Or the leaf plates and bowls in which they used to serve prashad at the temples?

All of this was cool when nobody cared about cool and as time progressed, we started caring about “cool” and stopped using these leaf bowls and plates. But hey, just because we don’t use them anymore, doesn’t mean that they won’t exist anymore.

There is a company in Germany called Leaf Republic which is currently being run by a small group of people that consists of a team of engineers and designers who have got really inspired by this age-old Indian traditional trend and started manufacturing plates and bowls made out of leaves and leaf-based compounds. Their main motto is to create products that are as aesthetically pleasing as they are eco-friendly.

What has inspired them to do this?

The perfect answer to this lies in the Philosophy section of their website which reads, “We love to beautifully present things, to beautifully package them. Packaging is a part of our daily lives. There has always been packaging and there always will be. As the number of people and their consumption keep on growing, the packaging market has an impressive size all over the world – and now it is time to revolutionize it.”

It further read, “Because we spend only a brief moment on this world. Everything we own is only temporary. What really counts is what we create, what we build up. What counts are our actions and our decisions. They last forever. They make up the true value of our being. If these actions lead to building up a sustainable, social, gainful company, then we will have the greatest job in the world,” as an answer to why they are doing this.

The leaf plates and bowls have existed for way longer than we remember and are much eco friendly than the plastic and paper plates we use every day. Isn’t it time they come into use again?