Upcycling leather car seats into must-have bags

SOUTH KOREA – Although cars are among the most recyclable products on the planet, car leather seat covers and nylon airbags are not. But in South Korea, vehicle waste that would normally end up buried in a landfill is being given a second life, thanks to a startup that manufactures leather fashion accessories.   

Founded in June 2015, the Seoul-based upcycling company Morethan launched Continew, a brand of backpacks and wallets made of recovered leather parts from car interiors.   

Morethan’s South Korean founder and CEO, Ian Choi, came up with the idea as a student in England, at the University of Leeds.

“One day, I found my beloved old car smashed into from behind so heavily that repairing it made no sense,” Choi said. “I loved that car so much that I removed its leather back seat and used it as a sofa. Some of my friends, impressed by its quality, encouraged me to make other things. That’s when I thought of making bags.”

Choi’s graduate school thesis subject was, funnily enough, corporate social responsibility in the South Korean automotive industry.

“Millions of tonnes of waste are produced from the car-making process every year. However, when discussing the environmental pollution issue we usually care only about reducing gas emissions, not about waste,” the 37-year-old CEO said. “I thought that upcycling leather car seats, seat belts and airbags into new products could be a solution.”

After returning to South Korea in 2013, Choi decided to create a business and visited several car junkyards to procure leather for his products. At first, most of the junkyard managers ignored him.

Others were skeptical, since similar products existed on the market. Choi entered his idea in the Social Venture Competition in 2014 earning a participation prize. Convinced he was onto something, he then recruited some colleagues to launch the leather brand.

Continew bags began to gain recognition thanks to the word of mouth and enthusiasm of its initial customers. The brand’s popularity exploded last October, when the lead singer of South Korean boy band BTS posted a picture of himself wearing a Continew backpack on social media.

The company currently has nearly 70 different products on the market. As of last March, it recorded monthly sales of about 200 million South Korean won (USD 187,700).

Choi is extremely confident about the quality of his bags, since the leather used for car interiors is durable and waterproof. Once removed from cars, the leather is cleaned, dried, ironed and waxed before being sent to a factory in Seoul, where skilled craftspeople craft the bags by hand.  

Usually, dying natural leather requires large quantities of chemicals and water, as it needs to be washed five or six times to neutralize its odor. But since Continew’s process involves exclusively leather waste, no animals are harmed and less water is used.

By upcycling waste, the startup avoids the need to dye the material, using only water and a detergent containing baking soda and wool shampoo to clean it and rid it of odors. “For every backpack, 1,642 liters of water are saved,” Choi said.

Leftover leather pieces from the manufacturing process are also recycled; the company grinds them into tiny pieces and mixes them with latex rubber to make leather fabric. Nylon airbags and seat belts that cannot be reused in cars for safety reasons are turned into summer backpacks and straps.

Keeping its promise to “turn something useless into something useful,” Morethan aims to go beyond upcycling cars and also create jobs. “I wanted to give a chance to vulnerable people looking for employment,” Choi said.

North Korean refugees are among those who have trouble finding a job in South Korea – “Particularly North Korean women,” Choi explained, “who have extremely limited job options, as factories are reluctant to hire them.” Today, the company employs two North Korean female refugees. One is being trained for leather categorizing and the other one as a saleswoman at the company’s store in Seoul.

Morethan’s next goal is to enter the global market with the Continew brand. The company plans to open a pop-up store this spring in Los Angeles, California, and another at the airport shop in Jeju Island, South Korea’s top tourist destination.

“Our solution can be applied to any country, because leather seat waste represents an ongoing challenge for all car manufacturers,” Choi said. - Eunjee Wi (Dong-A Ilbo)