WOOD BELT MATERIALS
WOOD
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic material – a natural composite of cellulose fibres that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin that resists compression. A living tree performs a support function, enabling woody plants to grow large or stand up by themselves. It also conveys water and nutrients between the leaves, other growing tissues, and the roots.
Wood has been used for thousands of years for fuel, as a construction material, for making tools and weapons, furniture and paper.
The growing stock of forests worldwide was about 450 billion cubic meters. As an abundant, carbon-neutral renewable resource, woody materials have been of intense interest as a source of renewable energy.
Our buckles are made entirely of wood and without any iron or metal. We use local wood and try to produce buckles from cutoffs.
CORK
As nature lovers, cork fabric is a natural choice for us. The raw material is obtained from the bark of Portuguese cork trees. It takes approximately five decades to grow a mature cork oak tree that has high-quality bark. Then, depending on climate conditions, the tree can be stripped every 7-10 years. It is essential to highlight that cork bark harvesting causes no harm to the tree and is a beneficial process. A stripped cork tree absorbs, on average, five times more CO2. In addition, the cork bark obtained from the trees is disinfected and used to produce cork blocks. Skinny layers are sliced from blocks to soft and flexible yet durable cork fabric and create high-quality textiles.
Cork is a premium natural material, and cork products are 100% animal-free and bear the PETA-approved vegan certification. Cork fabric does not contain any heavy metals or compounds, organic solvents, mineral fibres or formaldehyde. Additional synthetic materials result in better product characteristics.
Nice look and feel, robust material grown in sustainably maintained protected areas, and biodegradable are the main advantages of cork.
CIRCULAR LEATHER
There are three main circular economy principles: remove waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use and regenerate natural systems.
Renewable resources and the reuse of resources already in circulation will be fine, as long as they can be produced or recovered in sustainable ways. Using what we can grow and recover to make the products we use to live, keeping things for a long time, repairing them when we need to, passing them on for someone else to use when we no longer can or want to. Eventually, taking the product back and recovering the materials it’s made from gives these a second, third, fourth, fiftieth life. Materials must go round in circles; as little as possible must go to waste. Many reasons demonstrate why leather is a perfect fit for the move towards a circular economy.
LEATHER
Humans used leather as a fabric to make clothes and accessories long before the fashion industry as we know it appeared. It has been in all eras, by pretty much every culture, and they knew why they were choosing it. Leather material has some advantages: naturalness, eco-friendly, style, timelessness, strength, flexibility and durability.
The leather parts of Wood Belt belts do not contain pentachlorophenol, formaldehyde, hexavalent chromium or other harmful substances. The leather is tanned and finished without the use of toxic chemicals. We do not use hides of species listed as threatened or protected under the Washington Convention.
COTTON
Cotton is one of the most common and most used fabrics. This natural fibre is light and breathable. It is renewable and biodegradable and has become an inevitable part of one’s living. We name it the “fabric of our lives”. Humanity has been using cotton for the last 7000 years daily for different purposes. Cotton is the most significant natural fibre supplying the global demand for textile products. In 2017, the total global production of cotton amounted to some 120.86 million bales. Cotton accounts for about 40 per cent of total world fibre production. Some interesting facts about cotton: – Cotton is not pure white, but it is a tannish colour. Mother Nature coats cotton with a protective raincoat of oils and waxes. The purpose is to avoid getting wet and rotting in the fields. The fibre has to be purified to become white. – Cotton has been around a very long time, back to 450 BC in Peru. – More than 100 countries all over the world produce cotton. – The cotton plant takes between 180 and 200 days to grow from a plant seed to a mature plant, ready for harvesting. – Did you know Euro banknotes are made out of pure cotton fibre? It gives them a long lifespan and a distinct feel. However, conventional cotton has substantial environmental impacts, which have led the cotton industries globally to shift to a sustainable choice- organic cotton.HEMP
Hemp has been grown and spun into fibre for thousands of years. The great thing about hemp is that it’s grown all around the world, and it requires very little water, no pesticides, and naturally fertilises the soil it grows in – making it much better for the environment than other crops. And it has so many uses: it’s used as a food, a building material, in cosmetics, and it has been cultivated and used for hundreds of years as a fabric. Hemp fabric is made from the long strands of fibre that make up the stalk of the plant. These fibres are separated from the bark through a process called “retting.” These fibres are then spun together to produce a continuous thread that can be woven into a fabric. The various stages of this process can be done organically through a mechanical process that requires no chemicals. One of the oldest fibres in the world, hemp helps keep you warm in winter and cool in summer and gets softer the more you wash it. For all these reasons, we also consider hemp one of the most sustainable fabrics out there.
NUO WOOD TEXTILE
NUO wood textile – a novel leather alternative. It is as soft as leather and supple as fabric – made from natural wood, vegan and sustainable. The pleasant feel and the beauty of the material fascinate immediately.
The innovation lies in creating an entirely new material out of wood that is hugely soft and flexible. NUO is a patented material made from thin sheets of wood that are bonded to a cotton textile backing using an environmentally friendly adhesive. Microlaser cutting turns selected woods into a unique soft material experience. (https://www.nuo-design.com/)
As this is a natural product, the colour and texture may vary slightly per production charge/per log/per sheet. The composition is as follows, depending on the type of wood and further processing of the material: wood 28-40%, adhesive 15-22%, textile 40-50%.
Its claim to sustainability characterizes NUO. The processed wood comes exclusively from sustainable forestry, managed ethically and with respect for the whole ecosystem. We can trace timber origin at any time. NUO is environmentally friendly and 100% animal-free. NUO reduces the kg CO² emitted into the atmosphere by about 60% compared to a square meter of leather.
