Biocellulose Microfactory

Long description

Ponto Biodesign is an experimental laboratory and design studio where we develop healthy materials with bacterial cellulose and local food waste. With those materials, we design beautiful and practical products, proposing alternatives for the packaging and fashion industries that use highly polluting materials.

Bacterial cellulose (or biocellulose) is a remarkable, compostable and versatile material that can be locally grown using food waste to feed the bacteria that produces it. We want to implement a “Biocellulose Microfactory” to scale bacterial cellulose production in Guatemala City. Our initial goal is to grow biocellulose using local brewery waste as nutrients for the organisms and produce two kinds of materials: (1) a leather-like material for the fashion industry to replace animal and synthetic leather and (2) materials for the packaging industry, some made only with biocellulose and others combined with food waste.

The microfactory will be open for visitations, offer workshops and create open material recipes for the community in order to democratize the production of healthy, compostable materials that can safely return to the environment, feeding the biological cycle.

The intersection of design, biology and technology is a great catalyst to develop a new hyperlocal and distributed material production system, aiming to transform the current industrialized, centralized and large-scale system into a flexible and small-scale one. Biocellulose production and the use of food waste as a resource are an opportunity to produce healthy materials that avoid the extraction of virgin resources and at the same time prevent waste production.

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