This Dutch startup makes clothes out of cow manure

What to do with cow poo is a global environmental issue. Jalila Essaïdi, a Dutch artist and entrepreneur based in Eindhoven, Netherlands, is tackling the problem by transforming cow waste into fabric, extracting cellulose, the grass and corn the animal ate. Another researcher, Alexander Bismarck, head of the University of Vienna’s polymer and composite engineering group, is working on creating ultra-thin nanocellulose from cowpats. “The beauty with an animal is that it’s collecting low-grade biomass, processing it for you, regurgitating, [then] acid and enzymes attack the cellulose and it comes out in the back in quite fine fibres,” he says.