Spinning straw into gold: Company finds new use for old material

Trevor Kloeck holds a handful of fluff in a barn in Sturgeon County. It might look like ordinary straw, but it’s the end result of years of experimentation.

Kloeck’s company, Plantae Environmental, takes wheat and barley straw from Sturgeon County farms and runs it through specialized machinery that slices and dices it with micron-level precision, resulting in this high-tech fluff. Shot out of a water cannon, the fluff (marketed under the name ReCover) acts as a sort of spray-on lawn oil companies can use as a cheaper, compostable alternative to plastic erosion control blankets.