Version 1
: Received: 8 August 2024 / Approved: 8 August 2024 / Online: 9 August 2024 (08:28:12 CEST)
How to cite:
Flowers, K.; Flowers, I. Material Circular Bioeconomy: Disintegration and Biodegradability of Leather and Trendy Alternatives. Preprints2024, 2024080691. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202408.0691.v1
Flowers, K.; Flowers, I. Material Circular Bioeconomy: Disintegration and Biodegradability of Leather and Trendy Alternatives. Preprints 2024, 2024080691. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202408.0691.v1
Flowers, K.; Flowers, I. Material Circular Bioeconomy: Disintegration and Biodegradability of Leather and Trendy Alternatives. Preprints2024, 2024080691. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202408.0691.v1
APA Style
Flowers, K., & Flowers, I. (2024). Material Circular Bioeconomy: Disintegration and Biodegradability of Leather and Trendy Alternatives. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202408.0691.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Flowers, K. and Inge Flowers. 2024 "Material Circular Bioeconomy: Disintegration and Biodegradability of Leather and Trendy Alternatives" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202408.0691.v1
Abstract
The end of life and circularity of products is an increasingly important issue, driven by concerns over their environmental impact and emerging regulations. Natural materials such as leather should be an obvious choice in the design of sustainable, circular products. Several ‘trendy’ alternative materials have been developed that are presented as sustainable alternatives to leather. This research compares the potential for leather and ‘trendy’ materials in composting conditions. The capacity of a material to biodegrade at the end of its life will influence its potential to be part of a circular economic model. The results show that most of the alternatives are poorly compostable. A notable exception was Piñatex® which showed 65.25% disintegration and 59.84% biodegradability while leather largely showed good disintegration and biodegradability. Plants grown in vegetable tanned leather compost produced 74% more top leaf growth than the blank. Vegetable tanned and chromium-free leather produce compost with an ecotoxicology profile that is favourable for use in agriculture. The results show that through its capacity to produce composts, leather has the potential to contribute to the circular economy. In contrast, trendy alternatives had a very limited capacity for biodegradation and would create waste issues at the end of their life. .
Chemistry and Materials Science, Polymers and Plastics
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
