CORKonLINEN – The LIN’novation

We have strong values at Bag Affair and we believe that if we can do better, we should do it. Business bags for women, for empowerment in the workplace, this is what we want to do. But above all in respect for animals, humans and the planet.

This is why we are always on the lookout for new innovations and are proud to present an entirely new material: CORKonLINEN.

Only 3 ingredients

In CORKonLINEN you only have 3 ingredients. All are vegans and European, Cork, water-based glue and linen.

Why complicate things if it can be easy?

OK, to be honest it wasn’t that easy to get here …

The development

We started in 2019 with the idea of replacing the cotton used in our bags and fabrics with linen. As you may know, we always need a textile under the cork to produce a fabric from it. [Complete procedure here]

The idea was to use linen instead of cotton. Why? Because in France there is no cotton but France is the biggest producer of linen. In addition, cotton (even organic) uses a lot of water, pesticides and fertilizers.

Natural and sustainable

Did you know that linen is natural, absorbs a lot of CO2 and has a lot in common with cork?

Numbers and statistics –
  • 44,000 tons of leather were produced in Europe in 2011, that year the impact on the environment represented the following values:

– Wastewater: 15 million tons m3 / year

– Solid waste: 210,000 tons / year

– Atmospheric emissions: 7,000 tons of CO2 / year

  • One ton of leather = 50 m3 of wastewater and 700 kg of solid waste
  • 1 meter of leather (i.e. two shoes for example) generates 20 kg of CO2
  • A cork forest retains 6 tons of CO2 per hectare, making it 4 million tons per year in Portugal
  • The cultivation of European flax makes it possible to retain 602,549 tons of CO2 each year
  • One hectare of flax retains 3.7 tons of CO2
  • France is the world leader in the production of flax – a rare product which represents less than 1% of the textile fibers consumed in the world

Unique, innovative and patented

The CORKonLINEN material is unique: resistant but compostable, this material is designed to replace leather and all kinds of PVC and plastics. RTFACT Brands holds a patent on this material. If you want to know more, please do not hesitate to contact us.