Upcycled Fashion: 'Leather' Bags Made From Leftover Fruit

Future Fabrics
Written By By Henrietta
 

Imagine going to the store, picking up some fresh fruits, and then carrying them away in a bag made from leftovers of those very same fruits.

How about then heading home to eat a bowl of fruit salad, whilst sitting on a chair made from its discarded counterparts? 

Thanks to an innovative group of Rotterdam based designers, this could soon be entirely possible.

 
 
 
 

After discovering that around 3500 kg of fruit and vegetables are thrown away in Rotterdam markets every day, the collective of designers studying at Willem de Kooning Academie wanted to do something about it. So they started collecting the discarded fruits, and gave them new life by recycling them into durable fruitleather.

The fruits are mashed, cooked and then dried to produce the leathery material. They've so far demonstrated its use for bags, chairs and artworks, but suggest many more products are possible.

The team are still perfecting the manufacturing process to maximise the leather for commercial use, but we're excited to see what they come up with!

 
 

They have dubbed the project Fruitleather Rotterdam, and we applaud the innovative thinking they have applied to the very real problem that we have the world over: how to turn food waste into a environmentally-friendly, useful and economical product. 

We have a feeling we'll be hearing a lot more about this type of bold thinking in the future...

To read more about them, go to Fruitleather Rotterdam

By Henrietta

Henrietta is the 'daughter' half of the Future King & Queen mother-daughter duo, and is the face you'll find in front of a camera. She strives to live gently on this earth, and to make the world a kinder, fairer place.

Henrietta is a recent graduate with a degree in Commerce + a diploma in French, and has a passion for using business skills to drive positive social change. She works in ethical fashion, and is also a model for ethical and sustainably minded brands (drop her a line here if you'd like to work with her). 

After being vegetarian for many years, and gradually transitioning towards veganism, she attended a panel discussion 2 years ago on the dairy industry (held by Voiceless). From then on, it made complete sense to commit to a fully vegan lifestyle, as a way of being compassionate towards animals, the environment and people.

It was then a natural progression to consider the impacts of her other daily decisions, and so her interest in ethical fashion and sustainably minded living in general was born.

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