If you have invasive plants growing in your area, it is possible to change them to briquettes. These can be used for burning/cooking or for planting seeds – just fill the hole of the dry briquette with fresh soil and seed or young plant.

In the urban space of Teren in Ljubljana, there are a couple of species of invasive plants: paulownia, fallopia and ailanthus/tree of heaven. Together with društvo Trajna we identified the trees and planned the project in 3 stages: 1 – identifying/ cutting/ drying, 2 – rotting/ shredding/ making briquettes/ drying, 3 – testing the burning/ pyrolysis

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I used gloves and scissors for cutting – its best just to get the leaves as branches can be hard to shred later in the process.

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Try to arrange the fresh leaves on as large area as possible and protect them from the rain. It might take up to 2 weeks for the material to be fully dry. Second step involves wetting them lightly so the material disintegrates and becomes easier to shred.