A handbag made of apples and pears?

Soon this can be a reality. Belgian BioBoost Partner ILVO will participate in project APPEAL that investigates how to make leather from fruit residuals. It doesn’t taste good, but it is durable and completely environmentally friendly!

The aim is to make from apple and pear waste a recyclable, compostable, biobased, leather-like material as an alternative to animal leather and with similar physical characteristics. The environmental impact of the developed process will be compared with the current production process of animal leather.

The project is still in its infancy, but some patchwork leather could be made already. Not only apples and pears are suitable, but other types of fruit can be used and possibly also vegetable waste, the project thinks.

The idea of making fruit 'leather' has led in the Netherlands already to a new company Fruitleather.

For more information, please visit:
https://fruitleather.nl/ (ENG)
https://vlaanderen-circulair.be/nl/doeners-in-vlaanderen/detail/appeal (NL)
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2019/01/14/draag-eens-een-handtas-of-riem-van-fruit/ (NL)