Brown Leaf
A scalable model to stop dry leaf burning
Mission: ✅ Not a single dry leaf should be burnt in India.
Brown Leaf is an open, replicable model that helps cities divert dry leaves away from burning by building simple exchange and adoption pathways. www.brownleaf.org
Why Brown Leaf exists
Every winter, Indian cities generate mountains of dry leaves.
The default solution is still the same: burn them.
But dry leaves are biodegradable. They are meant to return to soil.
Burning them is not just “cleanup” — it is air pollution, health risk, and loss of valuable organic matter.
Brown Leaf exists to replace burning with practical alternatives that work at scale.
The Origin Story (How it Started)
Brown Leaf began under a huge monkey biscuit tree — वावळ (Holoptelea integrifolia) — in my own building premises.
Like most places, we followed the default routine: sweep dry leaves into a pile and burn them.
I decided to stop it. I instructed the lady who sweeps our premises: “No more burning.”
About a month later, she came back and said, “Madam, there is a huge heap now. We have to do something.”
That’s when I realised:
asking people not to burn leaves is not enough. We have to provide an alternative.
In a desperate attempt to find a solution, I drafted a message and shared it across WhatsApp groups.
That message reached Sujata Naphade.
Sujata cultivates pesticide-free vegetables for her family, on a plot that had been used as a dumping spot for years. With almost no soil left, she was rebuilding organic matter… using dry leaves.
She replied to my message and said something I couldn’t believe:
“I can take away every single leaf your tree sheds. In fact, I need more.”
As a starter, I collected dry leaves in five gunny bags. The next day, Sujata came and picked them up.
I visited her garden soon after. That visit was an eye-opener.
Until then, my thinking was limited to: “Leaves are biodegradable, so they shouldn’t be burnt.”
Now I understood something deeper:
Dry leaves are useful — and in demand.
The Eureka Moment: A City Demand–Supply Gap
Urban gardeners and terrace gardeners constantly need dry leaves to create compost and growing media.
At the same time, homes, societies, campuses, and streets generate dry leaves in huge quantities — and want them gone quickly.
So the problem isn’t lack of awareness.
The problem is a missing connection.
If we connect leaf-donors to leaf-takers, we can prevent leaf burning at scale.
That’s what Brown Leaf was built for.
The Brown Leaf Model
Brown Leaf follows a simple 3-step priority approach:
✅ MULCH
Use dry leaves as a protective layer for soil in pots and plant beds.
✅ COMPOST
Compost dry leaves with kitchen waste to create rich organic matter.
✅ DONATE
If you can’t mulch or compost, donate dry leaves to someone who needs them.
This third option is the scale lever.
It allows people to stop burning immediately, without requiring everyone to become a composter.
Who can use this model
This model can be started by:
citizens and volunteers
housing societies and RWAs
schools and campuses
offices and institutions
ward teams and corporators
gardeners, composters, nurseries, and farmers
Brown Leaf is designed to be practical, low-friction, and repeatable.
Replicate Brown Leaf in Your City
Brown Leaf is an open model.
If your city burns leaves, you don’t need permission — you need the process.
[ Download Replication Kit (Free) ]
[ Start Brown Leaf in My City ]
Want ward-level / city-scale implementation?
If you are a corporator, ward office, or institution handling large volumes of leaves, Brown Leaf can be implemented as a bulk diversion pathway using existing systems.