Do you ever wonder where old Amtrak train seats end up?
When it’s time to update train cars, the old seats are taken to Atlanta to get disassembled. The cushions go to a carpet recycler in Indianapolis and the leather seats arrive at People for Urban Progress (PUP), an Indianapolis-based nonprofit that recycles materials for urban reuse projects.
PUP’s recycling team takes the worn leather seats, cleans them up using an eco-friendly dry cleaning process, cuts them down and turns them into high-end handbags.
The seats were dirty. Some had gum, coffee and ice cream smears, but out of that came something beautiful.
“One of the main objectives of this upcycling project is to divert as much waste from landfills as possible,” Angotti says. “We have set a corporate recycling target of 20 percent by 2020 and this project will help us achieve that goal.”
The project is also an opportunity to give leather scraps a new life.
“When we look at cities, they’re surrounded by resources and there needs to be conversations about what we're going to be doing with all these resources once their original purpose has been met,” Cowley says. “It’s all about rethinking cities and waste and what were can do with it to make it useful.”
The Amtrak project will salvage more than 12,000 pieces of leather or 6,000 train seats from landfill. The organization looks forward to working with larger brands and making an impact beyond Indy.
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