Innovative Food Waste Leathers

As designers emphasize the need for sustainability and dedicate their time to finding material alternatives to help with a more planet-friendly approach to manufacturing, food waste leathers are gaining in popularity. One such example is Tômtex—a material made from seafood shells and coffee grounds. The innovative textile is developed by Vietnamese designer Uyen Tran who extracts the chitin biopolymer from shrimp, crab, and lobster shells, and combines them with coffee waste. The mixture is then dyed with natural pigments to produce a variety of colors to choose from.

Aside from being sustainable, the food waste leather is also pretty flexible. The bio-material can be easily embossed to sport a variety of patterns, which is beneficial to those who are seeking to replicate the aesthetic of snakeskin, for example.

Image Credit: Dezeen