FABRIC: MALAI,COCONUT

Slovakian designer and material researcher Zuzana Gombosova, alongside product designer Susmith, founded Malai, a company dedicated to recycling coconut water waste. Gombosova had been working with bacterial cellulose for a few years since shifting her focus from fashion to microbes, after learning about the fashion industry’s harm, before meeting her soon-to-be-business partner Susmith in northern India. She was studying the traditional bacterial-cellulose growth process from the Philippines, where they were growing bacterial-cellulose on waste from coconuts. Gombosova went looking for a possibility to use this biological process in India. In Southern India, coconut farmers remove the white flesh of the fruit and in the process, discard up to four thousand liters of water per each coconut processing unit. This water is normally released into a drainage system, which acidifies and pollutes the water. Gombosova and Susmith’s company Malai takes this water, sterilizes it, and combines it with their bacterial culture. The bacteria feeds off of the natural nutrient-rich water for twelve to fourteen days and once that time is up, the fermented sheet is refined. The company’s team enriches it with natural fibers, resins, and gums to create a more flexible and durable product. They can then mold them, design them, differentiate their thickness and texture, and dye them naturally and plant-based using the Natural Dyes Lab Company in Northern India. Completely vegan, Malai is like a leather or paper material, used for a vast amount of products. Gombosova, Susmith, and their team have been experimenting with levels of bacterial cellulose and fibers in order to combat the increase of demand for natural fibers. They work diligently and sustainably to make Malai an optimal choice of material.