Green and low-carbon around ③| Apple peel waste plastic, the Forbidden City Cultural and Creative Arts prefers it. Environmental protection can be so fashionable

When waste reuse encounters traditional culture, and when environmental protection is superimposed on fashion elements, what kind of sparks will it collide? What kind of novel aesthetic and consumer experience will it bring?

Make a "vegetarian" leather bag with apple peels

Recently, a cultural and creative product of the Forbidden City, the dragon pattern mobile phone bag, which "uses apple skin to make leather bags", has become an "environmental star." It not only gracefully walked into the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit to show the beauty of China's traditional culture to Chinese and foreign people, but also once leapt to the top spot on the Weibo hot search list and became a "good feeling" for many people who love environmental protection and fashion.

The top left is a dragon-pattern mobile phone bag made from recycled apple skin.

Everyone was surprised that such a delicate leather touch was actually made of apple peel.

This is a product in the Forbidden City zero-waste project jointly created by the Forbidden City Cultural Innovation and Baopu Regeneration BOTTLOOP. Liu Xuesong, founder of Baopu Regeneration, told reporters: "This plain leather is a bio-based material made from the remaining pomace and peel from the juice and candied fruit industry. It is an innovative alternative to animal leather."

Industrial juice production leaves behind the peel and mushy pulp after juice extraction. These flesh is composed of cellulose fibers. Producers turn the residue into pulp, mix it with organic solvents and polyurethane, and bond it to the fabric to form a leather-like fabric.

The most novel thing is that this plain leather can imitate animal leather through different structures, colors and feelings, breaking the boundaries of many people's imagination about environmental protection and bringing surprises to people.

This apple leather bag is a green exploration by the Palace Museum. It is inspired by the Palace Museum's collection of alum red color and gold cloud dragon pattern straight neck bottles. It is paired with Yunlong buckles, bringing a "good momentum" full of environmental protection. According to the Palace Museum, it has transformed the waste generated in the courtyard into green resources and recycled it, encountering and colliding with the cultural beauty hidden in ancient cultural relics, and has produced dozens of models with a sense of "zero"(zero is zero waste). Environmental cultural creations. In addition to this "dragon pattern mobile phone bag" made from recycled apple peel, there are also "Songfu" bracelets made from fallen leaves and branches of the Forbidden City, rain ponchos, skin garments, handbags, silk scarves, etc. made from waste plastic bottles. This provides people with greater imagination. It turns out that waste garbage can also be transformed into fashion items, helping to reduce carbon, plastic, and green life.

Liu Xuesong told reporters: "Leather utensils have a delicate touch and extremely high plasticity, which is indeed hard to put down. However, the harmful tanning process of animal leather continues to accelerate global warming, while synthetic leather is 100% made of plastic and is difficult to degrade. What should I do if I don't want to be limited by environmental pressure, but I have a soft spot for cortex? Vegetable leather gives us hope. It not only presents a structure and color similar to animal leather and brings a similar feel, but the production process can also greatly reduce wastewater and exhaust emissions. The important thing is that under certain conditions, it can degrade. Baopu Regeneration clearly prints carbon reduction data on the bag. This plain leather mobile phone bag regenerated from apple pomace can reduce carbon emissions by 78g per piece."

In addition to attracting more people to pay attention to environmental protection, this kind of environmental protection creativity has also allowed museums to "embrace" traditional culture.

Pay for environmentally friendly cultural and creative products and start another fashionable life

"A super cost-effective 'blind box'of leftovers! Right in Beijing "

On August 6, 2024, Yuming, who works in an accounting firm, posted an article on her Xiaohongshu account, introducing a platform called "Treasure Magic Bag". This platform unites many shops, mainly bakeries, to sell unsold goods at a very low price at night. It not only makes consumers happy to shop, but also reduces food waste. However, when buying, it is done in a "blind box" format, and consumers cannot choose what to buy. Yuming said she has also seen some restaurants, flower shops, and cake shops on this platform, and looks forward to more shops joining in to reduce carbon emissions and food waste.

Publishing content about environmental protection and sustainable living is the daily work of Yuming Xiaohongshu account. For example,"How to solve kitchen oil stains without hurting your hands and environmentally friendly","How to 'eat away' comfortably and environmentally friendly during the epidemic","How to save money and environmentally friendly making an earthworm compost box", etc. She positions herself as a "sustainable life performer" and "a minimalist environmental enthusiast."

She told reporters: "I regard minimalist living and sustainable living as a hobby, and I will replace some of the things I used to do with more environmentally friendly methods, such as plastic-free purchasing, bringing my own cloth bags, stainless steel crisper boxes, silicone bags, etc. to buy vegetables and meat; or participated in the Qingshan event. Once, there were 17 colleagues in our company and they picked up a total of 62 kilograms of garbage. This is just part of the garbage in a short 3-kilometer journey, and a lot of garbage is out of reach. In addition, I will also practice my environmental protection concept by reducing daily life such as takeout, green travel, and using towels instead of paper towels to wipe sweat in summer. Over time, I have a label, and people will say 'Yuming is particularly environmentally friendly.' In fact, I don't think many people are unenvironmentally friendly, but they just don't think of taking these actions, so I will talk more about it in the Little Red Book. If I talk too much, more people will participate."

At present, Yuming's account has more than 3000 fans and received more than 40,000 likes and favorites.

Talking about paying for environmentally friendly cultural and creative products, Yuming showed reporters an environmentally friendly woven bag she purchased. This dark green bag is an environmentally friendly and durable rPE fabric that is recycled and recycled waste plastic products. It also presents a flexible and strong texture like bamboo. "Environmental protection + traditional culture" is the biggest highlight of this type of product. This bag is hand-woven by craftsmen of the intangible cultural heritage "Daoming Bamboo Weaving".

The picture shows a woven bag recycled from recycled waste plastic products.

Baopu Regeneration staff told reporters: "Considering the cost of long-distance transportation and carbon emissions, we chose to use waste plastics recycled locally in Sichuan for processing."

The staff of Baopu Regeneration recalled visiting 84-year-old Zhao Sijin, the inheritor of "Daoming Bamboo Weaving" and his team in Daoming Town, Chongzhou, Sichuan Province, saying: "In our era, making goods is as fast as making hot spots, but for craftsmen, even if the world changes rapidly, the work at hand has to be slow. They are never in a hurry, because a basket that takes ten days to weave will last ten years. The skills you have learned throughout your life will be passed down hand to hand."

The best way to inherit is to let these ancient memories from daily life enter daily life again and become part of modern life.

And countless people like Yuming are the people who accept, share and pass on these innovative products that combine traditional culture and environmental protection concepts in modern life. In their eyes, this lifestyle is very "cool". She said: "I am a person who really likes to try new things. From trying to design and sell my own potted plants, making film portraits, to self-proclaimed as a 'sustainable life executive', I believe that every new experience will integrate into and become part of' me 'and my nourishment, allowing me to grow more wantonly and live freely."