This Handbag Isn’t Leather, And It Isn’t Plastic Either… You’ll Never Believe It.

A team of undergraduate students have taken upcycling to a whole new level: They're turning rotting fruits and vegetables into a malleable, useable leather fabric - fabric that can be used for a variety of purposes.

Fruitleather is made from old, rotten fruit and vegetables that often gets thrown away, or simply dumped illegally. The idea behind Fruitleather is to take that waste and turn it into something productive.

This is the incredibly tough and versatile "fabric" that Fruitleather manufactures.

The group is now putting the Fruitleather through durability tests, to further prove just how useful it can be.

The students want to keep their manufacturing process a secret, but here's what we know: They gather food waste, mash it, dry it, boil out the bacteria to keep the material from rotting, and roll it into a flat leather.

"Market vendors need to pay 12 cents per kilo to dispose of their waste," the students explained. "Which is the reason why it is often dumped illegally. It was an issue we wanted to solve with the thought: food is never waste. We decided to approach this problem from a designer’s point of view."

What do you think: Could Fruitleather be the material of the future?