Plantain, Coffee waste

Materia Madura

Materia Madura is a woman-led sustainable materials and design company. Durable, non-toxic, and locally sourced, their waste-based material can be applied to multiple design applications resulting in sustainable and sophisticated products.

Plantain and coffee, the cultural food staples of Puerto Rico, are produced and consumed in abundance, therefore their organic waste is also abundant. Analysing this food waste as a critical societal issue and a local resource, a new material was invented from waste matter to open innovative possibilities for design applications. Taking advantage of this local waste and transforming it through a design approach, Materia Madura aims to highlight how many everyday objects are designed with toxic, unsustainable materials, when they can be produced with locally sourced, non-toxic, and sustainable materials.

While individual consumers can obtain Materia Madura products through their online store, they also provide wholesale and custom designs for businesses. Offering an alternative to agricultural waste, food waste, and recycling, by buying Materia Madura products, businesses and individuals can obtain everyday products that are sustainable while contributing to the reduction of local food waste and contributing towards Puerto Rico's economy.

Making process

Materia Madura works closely with raw matter, to understand their properties and characteristics. In order to find the best texture, shape, scale, form and application that the material itself ought to represent. From the start, the making process is determined significantly by the material at hand. The properties and inherent characteristics of the material itself, dictate the method to be used in each design. For most of the products that the company designs, full-scale clay prototypes are made of each individual design in order to then make custom, reusable moulds. Once the moulds are finished, the processed plantain and coffee ground waste are poured into the moulds and dried. After the products have been set, the designs are taken out of the moulds and finished by hand.

Text submitted by the maker and edited by the Future Materials Bank. For information about reproducing (a part of) this text, please contact the maker.