Leather scraps and other fabrics left behind by textile industries occupy landfills and contribute towards pollution. Alexandro Kotoulas, a product design graduate from the Design Academy Eindhoven has discovered a way to reduce the quantity of discarded leather scraps. Kotoulas looked into the different ways leather scrap can be recycled. His research led him to conceive the Allotropan project.
Allotropan, his graduation project, is a strategy to give leather scraps a second life by interlocking the material. This is achieved by cutting leather waste into very thin strips (2-3mm). The strips are then woven together. This simple strategy can be done by hand and produces a mat that can be reused to make other leather items.
Kotoulas’ goal is to keep the material as pure as possible by excluding any chemicals that will transform the look and feel of the material.
