Now you can get cool bags made from leftover fruits and vegetables
With vegan products becoming more part of the mainstream than niche nowadays, you shouldn’t be surprised if someone told you that leftover food could be used to make accessories like bags in the future. Actually this is already possible now, thanks to a bunch of undergraduate design students.
Fruitleather is created from leftover fruits and vegetables. (Picture Courtesy: Facebook/ Fruitleather Rotterdam)
This special ‘fruitleather’ is a malleable and leather-like fabric created from rotting fruits and vegetables. So how did this happen? The students said that they came up with the project Fruitleather Rotterdam after seeing the amount of food wasted in their hometown. "We saw how the square would be completely littered with food waste [at the end of the day], so ... we realized this was a problem we would want to solve from a designer's point of view," Hugo de Boon, an expert on spatial design told Mashable.
The material does not rot as it udergoes special anti-bacterial treatment. (Picture Courtesy: Facebook/ Fruitleather Rotterdam)
When the students saw that market stand owners were not willing to spend a lot of money to dispose food waste safely, they decided to step in and began collecting the leftover food themselves to manufacture material.
But does it rot then? The answer is no. Without giving out too many details, De Boon tries to explain, “After collecting food waste from the market stands, the team makes sure all seeds are taken out of the fruit before they cut it up and mash it. Then they remove all bacteria from the fruit by boiling it, to ensure that it won't rot”, Mashable reports.
A closer look at the texture of the fruitleather material. (Picture Courtesy: Facebook/ Fruitleather Rotterdam)
After a special drying process, the Fruitleather can finally be produced, According to the Metro, the team is now testing their invented fabric for strength and durability and look forward to work with other companies to create new fruitleather products in the future.
