Dig the gum and gunk off those old leather airline seats and put them to good use rather than tossing them into the landfill. That’s what’s happening with that old Southwest Airline seat that you may have settled your buns into.
The 40+ acres of leather removed from 80,000 seats went to Looptworks, in Portland, OR, who hires adults with developmental disabilities to disassemble and clean the seats before the leather is made into satchels, totes, backpacks, handbags, and toiletry cases.
The jobs being created are useful, and the people are learning job skills. In addition, by using recycled rather than new leather on the bags, the earth wins: the manufacturing of each of these bags saves 72% in carbon emissions and 3,000-4,000 gallons of water.
To learn more about Project Luvseat, visit the Looptwork website, http://looptworks.com.