Cow dung terracotta

MERDACOTTA

The pottery by Italian dairy farmer Gianantonio Locatelli was created in collaboration with architect Luca Cipelletti. Together, they looked for a way to recycle the 100,000 kilos of cow dung produced every day. The material previously used as fertilizer and for plaster comes from Locatelli’s 2,500 cows, which are now used to make rustic flower pots, vases, sculptures and much more.

The product, which has a cooling property, is created by transporting the manure through an industrial digester, which not only extracts the urea, but also extracts the methane gas. The odorless mass is then dried and enriched with a Tuscan clay. In the final step, firing at 1,000 °C removes the residual straw.

The resulting MERDACOTTAcan therefore be described as an innovative type of terracotta.

Product name: MERDACOTTA
Manufacturer: Gianantonio Locatelli
Project status: Concept // Prototype // Ready for market // Ready for series production

Source: Solanki, Seetal: Why Materials Matter. Responsible Design for a better World, Munich 2018, p. 100.
Image source: Gianantonio Locatelli