Mother Nature would not like FineWoven at all. The animal-free material launched by Apple and used instead of leather for the covers of the new Iphone 15 is the exact opposite of a green solution. This is claimed by UNIC – Italian Tanneries, which commissioned comparative research to Ars Tinctoria, a laboratory specialised in organic analytical research on materials. The result leaves no escape for the Cupertino multinational: FineWoven is a petroleum derivative.
Greener than leather? No way!
“Last September”, writes UNIC in a note, “to coincide with the launch of its new Iphone 15, Apple said it wanted to improve the sustainability of its products”. How? Obvious, banal, predictable: “By replacing the leather in the covers of the new smartphone with an animal-free material called FineWoven”. Not only that, to announce this choice, Apple did things in a big way, producing and broadcasting a short film in perfect Hollywood style, as we told you in this article. Protagonist: Mother Nature. It is she, however, who would turn up her nose today, knowing that she has been pulled into the limelight: very much out of turn.
The study commissioned by UNIC to Arts Tinctoria, in fact, “leaves no doubt. FineWoven turns out to be a material of fossil origin that expresses a level of durability that is insufficient and completely incomparable to that of leather. In short: it is not as green as it is presented”. Please note: the comparison made by Ars Tinctoria was not based on just any leather, but on samples of the leather that Apple used for its covers in the past. And this is a detail that is by no means negligible.
FineWoven is a petroleum derivative
In terms of environmental sustainability, UNIC explains “the microscopic and “bio-based” composition of the two materials was analyzed (EN 16640 method)”. In other words, “the amount of biological (i.e., non-fossil) carbon present The results outline how the leather analyzed has a compact structure, with no interfibrillar polymers, and a 99% “bio-based” composition, while FineWowen has a dense weave of polymeric fibers (making it difficult for any recycling attempt) and is 1% bio-based“. It takes little to understand what follows.
All this, in fact, means that “leather is a natural, recyclable, bio-based material that, at the end of the product’s life, will “return” to nature in a reasonable time”. FineWoven is not, beacuse it is “totally fossil-based. It is a petroleum derivative: a plastic material that is difficult to recover and that will remain as waste in nature for thousands of years. With the associated risk of releasing micro/nanoplastics, whose danger to any living creature on the planet has been confirmed repeatedly”.
Did someone say “durable”?
There is more. Because if anyone has deluded themselves about FineWoven’s durability, they better retrace their steps, also heeding the many consumers (as we wrote here) who have already spread their serious complaints online. “In terms of performance”, as UNIC writes; “abrasion resistance (EN 13520, ISO 7906 methods) was measured, which simulates daily use of the object (Martindale method). Leather withstood as many as 51,200 cycles without showing any sort of alteration (neither on colour nor on material surface). While FineWowen withstood only 1,600 cycles, with obvious colour alteration and surface abrasion. All this proves that FineWomen is quite the opposite of a green material and does not guarantee the same durability as leather”.
Conclusions
“FineWoven,” UNIC concludes, “is in no way comparable or alternative to leather. It is just the umpteenth attempt (costly, given that a cover made with this material is sold on apple.com at EUR 69 a piece) to construct a marketing narrative that is not transparent to the consumer, and that unfairly penalises the tanning sector”. Leather, therefore, “remains, even in this case, the only true, realistic and credible alternative to itself”.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL VERSION OF THE STUDY COMMISSIONED BY UNIC TO ARS TINCTORIA
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