'In the future, it won't be called waste.'

WASTE // DOMESTIC // Sanne Visser

WASTED//BROKEN//GROWN is where I am serialising my most recent two books Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020 – now sold out in book form) and Broken: Mending & Repair in a Throwaway World (Ludion, 2023) and where I will be publishing the final book in the trilogy, Grown: Design That Gives Back, but only with your support. Subscribe and upgrade to paid to get all three books delivered to your inbox, chapter by chapter, and to support me in writing the third book.

Although a growing population poses many environmental challenges, one of the side effects is an increase in one particular natural resource: human hair. Every year, 6.5 million kilograms of hair is thrown away in the UK alone. The New Age of Trichology by designer Sanne Visser (1992, Hendrik Ido Ambacht, the Netherlands) is a project exploring the potential of this abundant material. ‘Human hair is extremely lightweight, flexible, high in oil absorbency and insulating,’ says Visser. ‘It also has very high tensile strength, which is what my research focuses on.’

‘What can we do with a material that is so familiar and accessible and yet still too alien for mainstream commercial use? ’

Inspired by her parents’ gardening business and her mother’s ceramics practice, Visser followed her passion for material innovation, design and sustainability at the Willem de Kooning Academy art school in Rotterdam, followed by a master’s degree in material futures at London’s Central Saint Martins. It was during her undergraduate days that she first became interested in waste as a resource. ‘I worked with several natural fibres, including hemp, sheep’s wool and cotton, but also human hair,’ she says. ‘To start with, this was from a fine-art perspective, but over time I developed an interest in material and our relationship with it, experimenting with fibres made from recycled denim, coffee grounds and mycelium.’