A Matter of Fruit: how to upcycle apple waste

Alternative leather product or biodegradable packaging – in this hands-on workshop you can create an environmentally conscious product from apple pomace films.

In apple juice production, an inconspicuous by-product is often overlooked: pomace. Instead of being used for biogas plants, pectin extraction or as animal feed, as is usually the case, this raw material offers another perspective: conversion into biodegradable films. This makes it a sustainable alternative to conventional fossil-fuel-based materials.

Together with Lena Marbach, a chemist at the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT, and designer Verena Brom will provide an insight into the "A Matter of Fruit" project, which is researching the development and potential uses of apple pomace and is funded by the Fraunhofer-Network for Science, Art and Design.

In this workshop, you can use various welding, sewing and printing tools to process the first prototypes of apple pomace films, analyse their thermoplastic properties and test the bounderies of plant-based films.



Maximum number of participants: 14
The workshop is for anyone interested, ages 10 to 100+.


© Verena Brom, Linda Deutsch