Turkish Company Transforms Tea Refuse into Vegan Leather

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A young Turkish firm is pioneering the upcycling of tea waste by turning it into vegan leather, ethical fashion textiles, and other eco-friendly products.  Named Wastea, after the slogan "was tea, now leather," it is a sustainable, bio-based material that can be used in various product categories, from handbags and shoes to automotive upholstery and furniture coverings.

Wastea is a brand under Istanbul-based Scays Group, which specializes in development and production of eco-friendly materials.

"Our aim is to replace leather, polyurethane, and polyvinyl chloride materials with our Wastea product for a better future for the environment and the future generations," Erdem Dogan, managing director of Scays Group, told STiR. Wastea leather is 40–95% bio-based.

Up to 10% of all commercially harvested tea leaf eventually becomes waste, according to Dogan. This happens at two stages. The first is in primary processing of freshly harvested tea, which generates a waste stream from discarded leaves, stems, and buds. The second is in advanced processing and deep processing, such as for tea concentrates, RTD, instant tea powder, nutraceuticals, and other extracts.

Little or none of this mountain of waste is recycled, and so it is either dumped in landfills or incinerated. This represented an opportunity for Scays Group.

"The first development happened almost five years ago, with the aim of creating a sustainable new generation of materials which can be adopted into all industries and replace old fashion materials which are polluting the environment and killing animals," Dogan said.

"It was very important for us to find a waste which has no future life cycle, and second, to find an industry and plants which are environmentally friendly. We found tea waste of the Camellia sinensis tea plant to be the most eco-friendly," Dogan said.

"My meeting with Yusuf Ziya Alim, the CEO of Caykur, Turkey's biggest tea producer, opened me to the green side of the Camellia tea plant," Dogan recounted. He was also encouraged because Turkey is the world's fifth largest producer of tea.  The crop is a major source of income among people in several of the nation's northern provinces, and the sector's workforce is primarily women.

Wastea has won a gold award for innovation from V-Label, the Swiss certification group that operates the world's leading vegan and vegetarian trademark.

"The market response is very good, and we have inquiries from all brands of textiles over to automotive,” Dogan said.

Wastea will participate in a series of international exhibitions to showcase their latest developments to the automotive, fashion, and textile industries. 

Beyond textiles, the company has also developed a new construction material using tea waste, called Wasment. This product makes use of the portion of the tea waste stream that is not suitable for making vegan leather.  Instead, it is ground very fine and mixed with cement and other elements to make an eco-friendly building material that offers durability, hardness, and thermal insulation from heat and cold. For all its upcycling, Wastea utilizes the waste stream from primary processing by tea factories, not by extraction processing. It sources this material from Caykur.

Researchers from Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati in a paper noted that global production of tea is increasing steadily and will continue to grow over the next decade. Already the level is nearly 7 million metric tons per year.  This results in the generation of ever higher amounts of tea waste, with a significant environmental impact.

"The need of the hour is to find alternative ways to utilize the tea waste generated in tea factories,” the paper said.