Clothes made from cow manure smelling of roses
Who would wear clothes made from cow manure?
Very many people would, according to the panel of expert judges for the recent clim@ competition.
The competition looked for innovative businesses or projects in sustainable energy or resource efficiency, and the judges gave the first prize, worth €15,000, to Inspidere BV of Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
Inspidere has developed techniques to completely deconstruct cow manure, and utilise the resulting cellulose for a new biomaterial they call Mestic. They transform manure into bioplastic, biotextile and biopaper. Getting their raw materials for free from farms enables Inspidere to produce their material at or below current market price.
And a 150 gram t-shirt produced with Mestic reduces global warming potential by the equivalent of 1 kg of carbon dioxide.
The clim@ competition is backed by the Green for Growth Fund, the first specialised investment fund to advance energy efficiency and renewable energy in Southeast Europe.
GGF is in turn backed by the European Investment Bank and KfW Development Bank.
The competition isn’t the only one to highlight how Inspidere uses an innovative method and technology to transform cow manure into biomaterials for producing clothes and other products.
We are proclaimed winners of the clim@ competition with #Mestic! By winning this award, we get one step closer to saving the planet in a fashionable way! #innovation @ggf_climat @GreenGrowthFund pic.twitter.com/HLeSV7SG6A
— Inspidere (@Inspidere) June 28, 2018
Inspidere founder Jalila Essaïdi has also been awarded $200,000 of the $1 million which the Chivas Venture gives to start-up companies each year.
The Chivas Venture is a global search to find and support the most promising start-ups with the potential to succeed financially and make a positive impact on the lives of others.
Jalila Essaïdi has also been nominated for the Eindhoven Culture Award.
The project was born in 2015, when Jalila was approached by the agricultural sector of the Noord-Brabant province to find a solution for surplus cow manure.
After winning the clim@ award, she said:
We get one step closer to saving the planet in a fashionable way!
By creating biomaterials that can be used as an alternative resource in the clothing industry, Inspidere’s business model provides a circular economy solution to the challenge of manure disposal.
