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DieKees is a biodegradable plant pot made from Dutch waste wool. It offers a sustainable, locally sourced alternative to the plastic pots you get when buying plants. Additionally, wool provides numerous benefits to plants, such as repelling insects and providing nutrition to the plants.
The plastic and wool waste problem
In the Netherlands, we throw away over 8.5 million plastic grower pots a year, adding to environmental waste despite their role in fostering greenery. Additionally, the Netherlands has over 1.5 million kilos of waste wool a year. Finding an application for this wool is difficult, as the fibre is unsuitable for fashion purposes, and cleaning the wool is a costly and environmentally hazardous process. Sheep farmers end up having to pay to ship the wool to incinerators.
Following the posthumanist design method of Ron Wakkary, Minne aimed to find an application for the wool that utilised its material characteristics. By following the material and including non-human needs in the process, DieKees emerged: the wool plant pot. DieKees addresses waste issues by creating biodegradable plant pots from waste wool, eliminating the need for plastic pots and finding a valuable use for waste wool. This innovative approach not only reduces plastic waste but also repurposes wool that would otherwise be burned.
Advantages of DieKees
DieKees does not only address the plastic and wool waste issues. By using wool, DieKees offers numerous benefits for plants and plant growing:
• It is biodegradable
• It holds water, meaning less watering is needed
• It repels insects, like slugs
• It provides isolation for roots against extreme weather conditions
• As the wool decays, valuable nutrients are released into the soil, help-
ing plants grow
This biodegradable pot contributes to sustainable plant growth: plants need less water, less fertiliser, and we can eliminate single-use plastic grower pots.
Official launch at DDW!
DieKees aims to find its application in the large professional Dutch plant-growers market, since this is where the real impact can be made. We are currently researching different production methods.
However, DieKees is already for sale for you! We officially launched DieKees at the beginning of Dutch Design Week 2024, and hope you will welcome your first wool grower pot in your home soon.
