FABRIC: FLEATHER
Regions: Uttar Pradesh, India
Fabric Name:
Fleather
Origin:
Uttar Pradesh, India
Who made our dye:
Phool
Natural history and ecology
With deep-tech research and supply chain innovation Phool has been successful in building technologies to viably convert temple waste into vegan leather, named Fleather. Based on the principles of Biomimicry & Cyclicity. Fleather is a breakthrough material that performs and feels like leather, but in non-animal and non-plastic. Fleather is biodegradable and can be composted at the End of Life.
What makes this so special:
For Fleather, they employ manual scavenger women for collection, sorting and processing thus, helping them earn disease free livelihood with dignity and respect. In Uttar Pradesh, India there are over 17,500 families engaged in degrading practice - we want to break the evil of 'untouchability'.
“Everyone puts religious temple waste into the water of the Ganges…No one has ever thought of temple waste as a source of pollution.”
“ Our parents grew up in poverty. Their target was to somehow get food on the table. Now that has changed. Food, shelter, clothing is not a problem for a lot of youngsters like us. We can actually focus on what’s next. So that is where this generation will bring these innovations and the next generation will actually scale them. And my dream is to make animal leather obsolete.”
Ankit Agarwal
Ankit Agarwal, Founder and CEO of Phool, a company that uses floral waste from temples in Uttar Pradesh, India to create incense, packaging material, and now leather (as they call it, fleather). Agarwal was inspired to use the wasted temple flowers when he saw the mucky, polluted River Ganges full of the colorful flowers, which he then discovered were contributing to the muck, hurting the lives in the river. It was with this goal—to use this “waste” for good—that Agarwal founded Phool. Now, every day, Phool sends vehicles to go through the temples and bring in the piles of flowers, which are then weeded out by hand and sprayed with their spray formula to offset pesticide residue. After washing the flowers, they separate them into species to sun0dry, and then they decide—depending on species and keratinoid levels—whether to use them for incense or for fleather. Fleather is still unreleased, but Phool prides itself on its incense being completely charcoal and sulfur free—and incredibly successful in the market.