Vegan, Outstanding And Sustainable 'Leather’ Made Out of Kombucha Tea (News In Science And Technology)

This extraordinary technology could be a new vegan material for clothing, handbags or shoes.
SCOBY film is a sustainable film made from a byproduct of kombucha tea. It is a gel-like film, that is grown by a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast, which feeds on a mixture of sugar and vinegar. The properties of SCOBY film are very similar to leather, once it’s harvested and dried.

[Students experimenting with SCOBY at the Queensland University of Technology. Source: ABC News]

The material had been already tested for many applications such as foods, cosmetics, biomedical tissue for wound dressing, but it is new to the apparel industry.

[Example of SCOBY being grown]

This product is also 100 percent biodegradable, which could be a remarkable benefit to the fashion industry, which generates large amounts of waste.

[State Library scientist Dr Peter Musk works with material made from kombucha tea. Source: ABC News]

It seems that new vegan technologies are coming out more and more often, which are great news to all of us vegans (and animals, of course).
-logic

Sources:

"Clothing made from tea byproduct could improve health of fashion industry"
http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2016/04/26/sustainableclothing

"Trending: Cow Dung, Kombucha Bio-Textiles Bring ‘Trashion’ to a Whole New Level"
http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/chemistry_materials/hannah_furlong/trending_cow_dung_kombucha_bio-textiles_bring_tras

"Can Kombucha Couture Save the World?"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/india-mandelkern/can-kombucha-couture-save_b_4321938.html

"Kombucha clothing: Scientists, designers work to make fermented tea into a textile"
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-31/kombucha-tea-scientists-designer-work-to-make-clothing-textile/7674892