Towards the end of 2020, Italian leather chemicals manufacturer Silvateam presented a new project called Ecotan. The director of the group’s leather business unit, Antonio Battaglia, has made it clear that the idea is one that Silvateam finalised during the lockdown imposed by covid-19. By December, there were 20 tanneries around the world already using the technology [see separate article in the Technology section of this issue of World Leather].

“We worked on this new project in response to demand from tanners and brands for fashion leather that is completely sustainable,” Mr Battaglia says. He explains that Ecotan uses natural products and harmless manmade additives. Leathers made using the new concept will work in harmony with people’s skin when they wear the material in shoes and other finished goods. At the end of a product’s useful life, he adds, specialist partners will take the material back and use it to make fertiliser. It is this that will make leather made using the Ecotan technology truly “biocircular”, Mr Battaglia insists. He says: “The leather will go into fertiliser, the fertiliser will help plants grow, the plants will feed cattle and, when the cattle go to slaughter, tanners will use the hides, a by-product of the food industry, to make more leather.”