Innovative sustainable materials
At The Contented Bear sustainability is part of our fabric and as such we are always researching innovative eco conscious materials to work with. We are part of a wider movement which in recent years have seen a renewed interest in natural materials for manufacturing, textiles & construction (amongst other things) and substrates found in nature are now being crafted into innovative fibres with a new materiality. Vegan leather, for example, has been around for decades but is a synthetic substitute made from plastic. An eco innovation has seen a natural vegan leather developed from mycelium - the root network - of mushrooms. The mushroom filaments are able to be standardised during their processing and then imprinted with unique and beautiful textures to recreate the texture and feel of animal skins. Clothing, shoes & bags can now be fashioned from mushroom leather/textiles but there are further applications from interior decor to building insulation.
Another sustainable innovation has seen plastic bottles kept from landfill and the ocean and then recycled and repurposed. The process involves post consumer PET bottles being cleaned and processed into small flakes, heated and formed into continuous fine strands and then spun together to form high quality yarn. This recycled yarn is then woven to form silky ribbons that we use to adorn our all of our gift boxes at The Contented Bear.
The oldest mechanised paper mill in the world resides in Hertfordshire and it is also the birthplace of mechanised recycled paper production, being the first mill to make paper solely from paper waste. Recycled paper takes 70% less energy to make than paper from virgin fibres and the fibres within paper can be recycled 5-7 times which is why all of our greeting cards and soap boxes are made from 100% recycled card.
The pioneering efforts are still going strong at Frogmore Paper Mill and include the making of banana fibre paper. Banana fibre paper has extraordinary potential as a renewable resource as unlike trees, banana plants take one year to grow. The fruit is harvested and the stems are cut back to enable fresh growth and fruiting for the following year. The banana stems are a waste product but they contain really strong fibres that can be turned into beautiful and sustainable paper which we are currently developing into bespoke banana paper notepads.
Innovative sustainable materials are creative and inspiring answers to many pressing environmental issues and the more they become part of our daily lives the better!
Banana fibres that would otherwise be waste products can be turned into sustainable paper.
The world’s first luxury hand bag made from mycelium by Stella McCartney.
Our luxurious and colourful 100% recycled plastic bottle ribbon
Our soap boxes are made from 100% recycled card with inclusions of straw for texture and an increased connection to the raw fibres used.
Absolutely Vodka’s pioneering paper bottles made from 57% paper with an integrated membrane of recyclable plastic.