Non-woven textile from upcycled fruit and vegetable waste

A method of producing a hydrophobic non-woven textile, the method comprising the steps of:

• providing a fruit or vegetable pomace, comprising water in the range of 60% to 95% (w/w) and a plant fibre;
• comminuting the pomace to provide a disrupted pomace comprising plant fibres of a fibre length below or equal to 2.0 mm;
• mixing the disrupted pomace with one or more density-modifying agents at an amount of density-modifying agent in the range of 10% (w/w) to 85% (w/w) of the weight of dry matter of the disrupted pomace;
• dehydrating the disrupted pomace by reducing the water content by 10% (w/w) to 30% (w/w) to provide a water reduced pomace;
• distributing the water reduced pomace on a surface and drying the distributed water reduced pomace at a drying temperature in the range of 20° C. to 150° C., for a drying duration to reduce the water content to 10% (w/w) to 30% (w/w) of the water reduced pomace, preferably to 20% (w/w) to 30% (w/w), to provide a non-woven textile;
• and
• coating the non-woven textile with a hydrophobic polymer to provide the hydrophobic non-woven textile.