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COCONUT LEATHER
The making of leather, or the tanning process, is notorious for being toxic to its makers and the environment not to mention deadly for the animals forced to provide the leather itself. As one of the leading agents of industrial pollution, alternatives to the material are on the rise, but many like plastic leather are still toxic and unsustainable.
Now, there is a new kind of ‘leather’ that comes from coconuts instead of animals. It’s not only a sustainable alternative, it’s turning a waste product into a valuable commodity.
Through their company in southern India, designer and material researcher, Zuzana Gombosova and product designer Susmith Suseelan have created Malai, a bio-composite material made entirely from organic and sustainable bacterial cellulose that is grown on agricultural waste.
The company works with local farmers and coconut processing plants in Southern India, collecting waste coconut water and repurposing it to feed the bacteria’s cellulose production. One small coconut-processing plant can collect 4000 liters of wastewater per day, which would otherwise be dumped and be damaging to the soil.
Now that amount of wastewater can be used to make 320 square meters of Malai leather alternative. It’s flexible, durable, water resistant, and similar in feel to leather or paper. Malai is colored with safe, natural dyes and the production process does no harm to animals. It consumes less energy and water during manufacturing, and never uses toxic chemicals at any stage of its production.
Malai can be produced in sheets of varying thicknesses or formed into seamless three-dimensional objects using molds—giving rise to an almost infinite number of products that will also be biodegradable and compostable—completing the entirely sustainable cycle from conception to disintegration.
Malai, the company, and the product itself, is an exceptional example of how conscious green manufacturing can support green consumerism while creating eco-friendly and fashionable products at the same time.
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