All particles of left overs or waste of the production is being used for the collection. For example, some cups or plates are made from full colored left over clay, but the waste part, such as funnels are mixed with white clay, resulting in speckled patterns. The drips are collected and reclaimed, resulting into an ever changing color palette depending on what colors we’ve been working with. We play with colors, clay body, structures, glazes and shapes. We carefully dive into unique waste qualities and translate them into items for the collection. All our items are carefully made by hand, resulting in less fall-out. We produce our own designs as well as custom designs for restaurants. All our items are restaurant proof.

Ceramic production goes hand in hand with waste. It’s a labour intensive process and failures can happen along the complete process. We start with raw clay, which is very fragile and can easily deform when whet. But raw clay is very easy to reclaim. It’s a matter of sorting, collect, dry and mix* into new clay. Once raw clay is bisque fired, it’s still very fragile and porous, perfect to do another quality control, sand away unevenness and glaze. Once cracked, chipped or in another way damaged, it’s become useless. But not for us. We use bisque waste for its unique quality. It can leave beautiful structures and colored speckles in clay, but also functions well as grog (chamotte). After bisque comes the high fire. At the highest temperature colors become visible, glaze starts to melt and clay shrinks into its final shape. Once the kiln is cooled down, which usually takes 2 days, we can open it and do a quality check on all items. Especially when using porcelain, deformation is one of the main failures causing fall out. But also pin holes in glaze surfaces, cracks or other damages can occur, which makes it impossible to sell or use. Especially at large production houses , this waste stream of high fired clay is the end of the cycle. It’s not useful for the same cycle. Which is a problem, thinking about fast (‘cheap’) production producing about 50% of waste!

To come with an alternative, we do a lot of research and look for ways how the high fired waste stream can enrich new ceramic ware and become part of an endless production cycle. Read more about research project Shadows of Light, Lotte did in Jingdezhen, China, focussing on its famous unique super white clay. Through this research we want to contribute to a sustainable future and come up with solutions for scarcity and reduction of mining resources.