I visited several places and my main personal and business goal was to clarify, confirm and compare that my people are working in ethical conditions and are aware of the environmental impact. As i mentioned above Magetan area is known and famous for tanners of all kinds. I am mainly doing vegetable tanned leather due to its lower impact on our nature and even that is not perfect as I found out, but we can minimize bad outcome for the environment when we choose the right people to work with. Continue reading to find out more about the leather situation, but first what actually veg. tan. leather is?

What is vegetable tanned leather (veg. tan. leather)?

Tanning is a processing animal skin to make leather by using chemicals or plant based liquid. Vegetable is the specifying the tanning process. Vegetable tanned means that during the process they use water with acacia bark instead of chemicals. The most popular chemical process is using chromium, which is used mostly in the world due to its effectiveness and price to make it.

Fun fact: You can sometimes see written in the description veg. tan. leather – it has nothing to do with color tan, it is short for “tanned”.

Ethical working condition for people? Confirmed.

I visited small and big tanneries and even though they differentiate with its size and process, which i will describe later, they have a common view how to treat people. They all provide gloves and boots, which is the minimum their workers need to protect themselves from the liquids, putty, tools and leather. You will not see people working with their bare hands or bare feet like in other tanneries in developing countries in Asia or Africa. This is a great achievement for people working in these conditions as their health matters and I am glad my first requirement is confirmed with my leather supplier in Magetan.

Pollution and sustainability. Confirmed and sorted!

I always minimize my impact on our environment and therefore I was looking at the process and each part of the process of some tanneries. What I found out is disappointing and it also includes other people and brands, who talk about sustainability and Eco-friendly products and while they talk about it they have no idea how their materials are actually made. Luckily there are still responsible people and I can work with tanners, who actually care about the regulations and environment with proper filter.

Issue with polluted river

Most of the tanneries have the same or similar process and you can read about the whole process below as it includes cleaning the hides, cutting the hides and dehydrating. Where it is not same is the final liquid waste and where it goes. Some tanneries put the processed water back to the river and they don’t care about its damage. Nobody wants to have smelly and unhealthy rivers.

As Indonesian person I can go around and get the information I need and can see what happens with my own eyes. Unfortunately there are people, who are extremely irresponsible for the environment for whatever reason they have. Luckily not all people are like that and I found tanneries, who work as a community and share the filter system together. I would like to emphasize and urge all people to check on their leather suppliers on what they do with the polluted water and how they treat it.

Responsible suppliers. Filter the liquid waste!

There are many suppliers and makers, who care for other people in the area and are responsible with their work. We just need to find them and work with them. Usually they will work as a community or it is a big tannery as the filter installation is expensive and one small tannery just cannot afford it.

The responsibility goes especially to the chromium( and other chemicals) based tanneries, which definitely need to have protective gloves and boots at least and filtering process for waste management.

I want to be responsible for my products and that’s why I went to explore the options and see it in person rather than just saying – yes we use vegetable tanned leather we are Eco-friendly. I want my customers to know that we can do better and we do.

Tanning process

The bigger factories process the leather same way as small home tanneries.
1. Mix the raw hide with lime and give it a spin in the huge barrels known as lime bath. This will clean hide from all parts like hair.
2. Put each hide through a press looking machines, which will clean the hide from last pieces of meat and leftovers.
3. Bath the leather in acacia bark for few weeks or months in few simple The leftover kind of muddy and fatty part is dried out on the sun. After few weeks it becomes a soil and can be used as a building material.

Fun fact: There is no major damage done to the acacia tree itself. Workers just take the bark from the tree and that bark re-grows back in 2-3 months. There is no need for destroying the trees or forest.

Conclusion

WildIndo is not just a fashion brand. WildIndo and I stand for well made products, ethical work and environment. All these parts are very important to me and I think it should be important to everyone. If you purchase any leather product, you should know from where and how it is produced that you do not accidentally and indirectly damage world’s nature. I am bit sad as I found out that vegetable tanned leather does not necessarily mean Eco-friendly. At the end it depends on each tanner and supplier how responsible they are and you have the power in choosing your brand and right business partner. The same way I check on my partners and the process.

Interested in rattan products instead of leather? Second part of my Java trip was concentrated on my rattan maker in Jepara area.

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We interviewed some of our artisans to give you better understanding of who makes your bags and accessories. You can find them divided in categories of what they make and are good at.

Leather and rattan

Mr. Hakim

Mr. Hakim was born 34 years ago in small village in West Java. He grew up there and also started to learn tailoring after high school. He didn’t learn from his father, but from his friends who were bit older than him and already were working in a leather factory. He liked the kind of work and thought it could be his skill and passion. It has been 15 years since those first moments from the first factory in Java and now he is skilled tailor and artisan with an open mind and experience.

When we asked mr. Hakim about the situation and why he likes to work with us in Wildindo, we were quite shocked and sad about some of the factories and his experience. As working for a factory in Indonesia can be quite unstable job and where the skill matters just as much as you like your boss. We understand it can be in any job difficult with your boss, so lets concentrate on the stability of working in a factory.

If there is a lot of work, they work long shifts, as fast as possible to finish all the work. Then when work is done and there is no more orders, there are unpaid holiday. This can be good if the factory has enough orders. If not, that can be difficult for him and his family. He can just move around the factories and ask if there is an open spot and sometimes it can be very unlucky. Mr. Hakim told us that several years back some months were really difficult to eat and basically survive.

That’s one of the main reasons why he likes to work in Wildindo. Small team, friendly environment and stable pay. You could also see some pictures of our artisans sitting on the floor. For people outside of Indonesia it can be a bit surprising that artisans in Indonesia usually sit on the floor, but he is very comfortable with a lot of space on the floor.

Outside of work he likes to ride a motorbike and racing, but not as much as before, because he has a 4 year old son. He spends most of the time with him and his wife in Denpasar, Bali.

Bamboo

Mr. Mustofa

Mr. Mustofa works directly with our partner bamboo factory, where they have a lot of space and machines. He has been working with them for a few years, after he moved to Bali from Jember East Java, where he was working with bamboo and wood for 18 years. He moved to Bali with his family for more work options as the bamboo bags since bamboo bags because popular.

Mr. Mustofa said, that in a good day he can make 8 bags, but he means the form and structure. We were asking him, when he was working on putting bamboo square bags together. In the linked article you can see described process of how to make the bamboo bag. As it needs some wood and bamboo preparation and polishing.

He use Bambu Mpring or Bamboo Apus from Bangli, Bali for our bamboo bags. This bamboo is 1 year old and is the best quality bamboo you can find in Bali.

While he works he loves to listen to his favorite Dangdut music. His main hobby is his work and work with any kind of wood. He admits that he is a workaholic.

When he doesn’t work he spends most of his time with his wife and big family of 4 children. He also like to watch football and cheer for his team.

The post Meet our artisans appeared first on Wildindo.

Every product needs raw material, bamboo grows everywhere in Asia and Bali is no exception. Bamboo is softened and cleaned with salty water from the ocean. Then processed bamboo is delivered to artisans.

When artisans receive the bamboo rolls, they cut it to the sticks and start measuring and adjusting size of those sticks for the bags. It is a precise job and our artisans use the measure box, where they can see which stick is too long and mark the cutting point.

Prepared and measured sticks are then tight together with a string and small wooden balls are placed in between them. This technique allows artisans to make a certain pattern and design.

Some parts of the bag needs to be strong and hold together for good. There is little bit of glue for this purpose. It starts to look like a bag you know 🙂

If you ever saw somebody working with wood, you know that before finishing you need to use sandpaper to make it smooth and clean. Bamboo needs that too if we want our bags last long.

There is the almost last part of the process, which is coloring and sun drying of the bags. Bamboo bags are not smoked as Ata bags, they are sun dried.

Last checks and corrections. Then bag is approved and is available for you.

This is how we make our bamboo bags in Bali. Would you like to see specific products and bags we offer? See and shop for the final bags below.

Go to our bamboo section or click on the picture below or visit our shop in Canggu.

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