Straw ​Return

2025 - ongoing

Bale Bricks and Acoustic Panels

Wheat stems​

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What if agricultural leftovers could replace plastics, reduce waste, and create new value for rural economies?

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Staramaki gives new life to wheat stems by transforming them into biodegradable drinking straws. Yet, even this sustainable process generates its own production residues.

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Isaac Monté tackles this challenge with a simple, radical question: Can this “waste of waste” be transformed into high-value materials for design and interiors?

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Through over 100 material experiments, Straw Return explores how wheat stem residues can be transformed into new, high-performance materials. We even developed a fully natural biobinder, using the starch of wheat.

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With this new composite, we created modular and layered, carbon storing, elements that combine sound absorption and design, adding warmth, texture and circularity to interior spaces.

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Straw Return is a collaborative project that has recieved funding under the S+T+ARTS Hungry EcoCities, a Horizon Europe research and innovation project